Extracting nonrigid motion and 3D structure of hurricanes from satellite image sequences without correspondences

Image sequences capturing Hurricane Luis through meteorological satellites (GOES-8 and GOES-9) are used to estimate hurricane-top heights (structure) and hurricane winds (motion). This problem is difficult not only due to the absence of correspondence but also due to the lack of depth cues in the 2D hurricane images (scaled orthographic projection). In this paper, we present a structure and motion analysis system, called SMAS. In this system, the hurricane images are first segmented into small square areas. We assume that each small area is undergoing similar nonrigid motion. A suitable nonrigid motion model for cloud motion is first defined. Then, non-linear least-square method is used to fit the nonrigid motion model for each area in order to estimate the structure, motion model, and 3D nonrigid motion correspondences. Finally, the recovered hurricane-top heights and winds are presented along with an error analysis. Both structure and 3D motion correspondences are estimated to subpixel accuracy. Our results are very encouraging, and have many potential applications in earth and space sciences, especially in cloud models for weather prediction.