Simulation-based Interpretation and Alignment of High-Resolution Optical and SAR Images

Kurzfassung

The successful alignment of optical and SAR satellite data requires that we account for the effects of sensor-specific geometric distortion, which is a consequence of the different imaging concepts of the sensors. This paper introduces SimGeoI, a simulation framework for the object-related interpretation of optical and SAR images, as a solution to this problem. Using meta-information from the images and a digital surface model as input, the processor follows the steps of scene definition, ray tracing, image generation, geo-coding, interpretation layer generation, and image part extraction. Thereby, for the first time, object-related sections of optical and SAR images are automatically identified and extracted in world coordinates under consideration of 3-D object shapes. A case study for urban scenes in Munich and London, based on WorldView-2 images and highresolution TerraSAR-X data, confirms the potential of SimGeoI in the context of a perspective-independent and object-focused analysis of high-resolution satellite data.