A Global Human Settlement Layer from optical high resolution imagery - Concept and first results

A general framework for processing of high and very-high resolution imagery for creating a Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) is presented together with a discussion on the results of the first operational test of the production workflow. The test involved the mapping of 24.3 millions of square kilometres of the Earth surface spread over four continents, corresponding to an estimated population of 1.3 billion of people in 2010. The resolution of the input image data ranges from 0.5 to 10 meters, collected by a heterogeneous set of platforms including satellite SPOT (2 and 5), CBERS-2B, RapidEye (2 and 4), WorldView (1 and 2), GeoEye-1, QuickBird-2, Ikonos-2, and airborne sensors. Several imaging modes were tested including panchromatic, multispectral and pan-sharpened images. A new fully automatic image information extraction, generalization and mosaic workflow is presented that is based on multiscale textural and morphological image features extraction. New image feature compression and optimization are introduced, together with new learning and classification techniques allowing for the processing of HR/VHR image data using low-resolution thematic layers as reference. A new systematic approach for quality control and validation allowing global spatial and thematic consistency checking is proposed and applied. The quality of the results are discussed by sensor, by band, by resolution, and eco-regions. Critical points, lessons learned and next steps are highlighted.JRC.G.2-Global security and crisis managemen

The IMAGE-2006 Mosaic Project

This report details the data ingestion, data organisation, and main processing steps adopted for generating the IMAGE2006 mosaic products. Chapter 1 describes the received data and the way it has been ingested and organised. Chapter 2 presents a detailed analysis of the footprints of the received imagery. Chapter 3 details the procedure used for cloud detection. Relative geometric and radiometric accuracy is studied in Chap. 4. The generation of a cloud mask is indeed fundamental for the generation of a mosaic minimising cloud cover. The mosaicing methodology is presented in Chap.5 The produced mosaics are described in Chap.6.JRC.DDG.H.6-Spatial data infrastructure

Order Independent Image Compositing

See attachJRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard