A study on the method for three-dimensional geo-positioning using heterogeneous satellite stereo images

Abstract

This paper suggests an intersection method to improve the accuracy of three-dimensional position from heterogeneous satellite stereo images, and addresses validation of the suggested method following the experimental results. The three-dimensional position is achieved by determining an intersection point of two rays that have been precisely adjusted through the sensor orientation. In case of conventional homogeneous satellite stereo images, the intersection point is generally determined as a mid-point of the shortest line that links two rays in at least square fashion. In this paper, a refined method, which determines the intersection point upon the ray adjusted at the higher resolution image, was used to improve the positioning accuracy of heterogeneous satellite images. Those heterogeneous satellite stereo pairs were constituted using two KOMPSAT-2 and QuickBird images of covering the same area. Also, the positioning results were visually compared in between the conventional intersection and the refined intersection, while the quantitative analysis was performed. The results demonstrated that the potential of refined intersection improved the positioning accuracy of heterogeneous satellite stereo pairs; especially, with a weak geometry of the heterogeneous satellite stereo, the greater effects on the accuracy improvement.