An Epipolar HS-NCC Flow Algorithm for DSM Generation Using GaoFen-3 Stereo SAR Images

Radargrammetry is a widely used methodology to generate the large-scale Digital Surface Model (DSM). Stereo matching is the most challenging step in radargrammetry due to the significant geometric differences and the inherent speckle noise. The speckle noise results in significant grayscale differen...

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Main Authors: Jian Wang, Xiaolei Lv, Zenghui Huang, Xikai Fu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-12-01
Series:Remote Sensing
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/1/129
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author Jian Wang
Xiaolei Lv
Zenghui Huang
Xikai Fu
author_facet Jian Wang
Xiaolei Lv
Zenghui Huang
Xikai Fu
author_sort Jian Wang
collection DOAJ
description Radargrammetry is a widely used methodology to generate the large-scale Digital Surface Model (DSM). Stereo matching is the most challenging step in radargrammetry due to the significant geometric differences and the inherent speckle noise. The speckle noise results in significant grayscale differences of the same feature points, which makes the traditional Horn–Schunck (HS) flow or multi-window zero-mean normalized cross-correlation (ZNCC) methods degrade. Therefore, this paper proposes an algorithm named Epipolar HS-NCC Flow (EHNF) for dense stereo matching, which is an improved HS flow method with normalized cross-correction constraint based on epipolar stereo images. First, the epipolar geometry is applied to resample the image to realize the coarse stereo matching. Subsequently, the EHNF method forms a global energy function to achieve fine stereo matching. The EHNF method constructs a local normalized cross-correlation constraint term to compensate for the grayscale invariance constraint, especially for the SAR stereo images. Additionally, two assessment methods are proposed to calculate the optimal cross-correlation parameter and smoothness parameter according to the refined matched point pairs. Two GaoFen-3 (GF-3) image pairs from ascending and descending orbits and the open Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data are utilized to fully evaluate the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the EHNF algorithm improves the DSM elevation accuracy by 9.6% and 27.0% compared with the HS flow and multi-window ZNCC methods, respectively.
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spelling doaj.art-48aa65af06684e9bbd380a685846991a2023-12-03T15:02:21ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922022-12-0115112910.3390/rs15010129An Epipolar HS-NCC Flow Algorithm for DSM Generation Using GaoFen-3 Stereo SAR ImagesJian Wang0Xiaolei Lv1Zenghui Huang2Xikai Fu3Key Laboratory of Technology in Geo-Spatial Information Processing and Application System, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, ChinaKey Laboratory of Technology in Geo-Spatial Information Processing and Application System, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, ChinaKey Laboratory of Technology in Geo-Spatial Information Processing and Application System, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, ChinaKey Laboratory of Technology in Geo-Spatial Information Processing and Application System, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, ChinaRadargrammetry is a widely used methodology to generate the large-scale Digital Surface Model (DSM). Stereo matching is the most challenging step in radargrammetry due to the significant geometric differences and the inherent speckle noise. The speckle noise results in significant grayscale differences of the same feature points, which makes the traditional Horn–Schunck (HS) flow or multi-window zero-mean normalized cross-correlation (ZNCC) methods degrade. Therefore, this paper proposes an algorithm named Epipolar HS-NCC Flow (EHNF) for dense stereo matching, which is an improved HS flow method with normalized cross-correction constraint based on epipolar stereo images. First, the epipolar geometry is applied to resample the image to realize the coarse stereo matching. Subsequently, the EHNF method forms a global energy function to achieve fine stereo matching. The EHNF method constructs a local normalized cross-correlation constraint term to compensate for the grayscale invariance constraint, especially for the SAR stereo images. Additionally, two assessment methods are proposed to calculate the optimal cross-correlation parameter and smoothness parameter according to the refined matched point pairs. Two GaoFen-3 (GF-3) image pairs from ascending and descending orbits and the open Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data are utilized to fully evaluate the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the EHNF algorithm improves the DSM elevation accuracy by 9.6% and 27.0% compared with the HS flow and multi-window ZNCC methods, respectively.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/1/129radargrammetryDSMdense stereo matchingSARGaoFen-3
spellingShingle Jian Wang
Xiaolei Lv
Zenghui Huang
Xikai Fu
An Epipolar HS-NCC Flow Algorithm for DSM Generation Using GaoFen-3 Stereo SAR Images
Remote Sensing
radargrammetry
DSM
dense stereo matching
SAR
GaoFen-3
title An Epipolar HS-NCC Flow Algorithm for DSM Generation Using GaoFen-3 Stereo SAR Images
title_full An Epipolar HS-NCC Flow Algorithm for DSM Generation Using GaoFen-3 Stereo SAR Images
title_fullStr An Epipolar HS-NCC Flow Algorithm for DSM Generation Using GaoFen-3 Stereo SAR Images
title_full_unstemmed An Epipolar HS-NCC Flow Algorithm for DSM Generation Using GaoFen-3 Stereo SAR Images
title_short An Epipolar HS-NCC Flow Algorithm for DSM Generation Using GaoFen-3 Stereo SAR Images
title_sort epipolar hs ncc flow algorithm for dsm generation using gaofen 3 stereo sar images
topic radargrammetry
DSM
dense stereo matching
SAR
GaoFen-3
url https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/1/129
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