Digital Building-Height Preparation from Satellite Stereo Images

Abstract

Buildings are considered prominent objects for understanding the pattern of growth in an urban setting. Remote sensing technology plays a vital role in facilitating data generation pertaining to various urban applications. Digital surface models represent the elevation of the earth surface features, and can be obtained from stereo images, radar, laser scanning, and so on. Photogrammetric techniques applied to optical stereo satellite images are economical and fast ways to generate height information of buildings. In this work, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of digital surface models generated from Cartosat-1 stereo images is compared with openly available data. The study finds that it is possible to acquire about 50 percent of building heights with acceptable error limits. The experimental results indicate that the quality of height information is suitable for applications to assess urban development at a macro scale, but not for individual building-level modeling.