Gianni Gorgoglione

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Module 1 Geometric correction




1. Introduction (Theoretical background)

In order to achieve the aim of the project it is important to make a geometric correction since the
SPOT-satellite images are not projected into a specific coordinate system. To make it possible, a
module called Resample, in IDRISI, is used to connect ground control points (GCPs) of the
SPOT-image to a raster image, or vector file, with a known coordinate system. This is often
called geo-referencing where the theory is to transform the topology of an image based on a
number of pinpoints (GCPs) to fit a correct image.

2. Study area/ Data

The study area is Lund municipality which is located in western Scania at Coordinates: 380000,
414000 (E-W) and 6153000, 6185000 (S-N). As can be seen in figure 1 the area outside of the
populated areas is primarily used for agriculture.

Table 1: Data description of the Terrangkarta and the SPOT 5 scene.











Method
The SPOT data (table 1) was imported into IDRISI and divided into four radiometric bands
(Green, Red, Near Infra-Red (NIR) and Short-Wave Infra-Red (SWIR)). For the geometric
correction the Terrangkarta (table 1) was used as output reference projected in SWEREF99 TM.
Terrangkarta is a map covering the road network, major buildings, topographical information and
general land use. The Terrangkarta was cut according to the extent of Lund municipality (see
section 2) for a less time-consuming resample. For input reference a false color composite of
green, red and NIR was utilized because of the distinct blue roads and houses in contrast to the
red vegetation. The order of polynomial fit was set to linear and the resampling type was set to
bilinear. Ground control points (GCPs) were mainly digitized in road crossings and roundabouts.
The total number of GCPs was 29 but 11 GCPs were omitted due to high residual errors which
left 18 GCPs for the resample.

Terrangkartan (tiff) SPOT5 (tiff)
Reference system: SWEREF99 TM -
Date: 2010 March 23 2011 June 03
Resolution (m): 5 10 (theoretical)
Map precision (m) 10 -
Scale: 1:50000 -
Raster size (pixels) 10000 x 10000 pixels 6000 x 6000 pixels
Sun azimuth: - 157.183373
Sun elevation: - 55.151331
Gianni Gorgoglione
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The four bands of the SPOT-image were then resampled into the SWEREF99 TM projection and
cut into the same extent as the Terrangkarta (Extent of the municipality of Lund, Section 2).

3. Results

The geometric correction resulted in four
images representing the four SPOT-
bands where the red, green and NIR can
be seen in figure 1 as a false color
composite. This image is cut according to
the boundaries of Lund Municipality.
The total root mean square (RMS) of the
resample was calculated to 1.536 which
is an error of 1.5 pixels.

4. Discussion

Terrangkartan was used as the output
reference for the resample because it was
the most reliable according to the
authors. The road-vector data was
sometimes used to verify GCPs, however
the authors found this layer to be
exaggerative in some areas and therefore
left it out of the major part of the
resampling.

The result turned out as expected where
the resampled spot images fit the other
SWEREF 99 TM images and vector
layers. However, the relatively small
RMS error of 1.536 is noticeable. When
comparing roads between the resampled
SPOT-image, road vector layer and
Terrangkartan there is a significant
deviation in the East-Western direction.
This can be seen in figure 2 where the
three layers are compared and where it is
clear that the geo-referenced SPOT
image holds a continuous East-Western
faultiness. The earlier mentioned
exaggeration of the road vector layer
(figure 2) is also very prominent. This
exaggeration is probably caused by the
fact that the layer is designed for car-GPS
usage where it is important for the
Figure 1: False color composite (FCC) of the geo-referenced
SPOT-image, cut into the Lund municipality extent.
Figure 2: Comparison of road accuracy of a highway junction
south of Dalby. Road vector layer (Black), digitized road from
terrangkarta (Red) and digitized roads from geo-referenced SPOT
image (Cyan). Background image is Terrangkartan.
Gianni Gorgoglione
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instrument to snap to the correct road. Except for the exaggeration the vector layer and the
Terrangkarta is quite similar.

It was quite difficult getting a lower RMS than the achieved result when digitizing the GCPs.
The goal of getting 0.5 according to the US national map accuracy standard seems to be a
challenge with this data. It is probably caused by the fact that the utilized images are not a good
representation of reality and therefore the geo-referencing is bound to get faulty. This is also the
cause to the faultiness in figure 2 where the accuracy of the different layers is low and therefore
the accuracy of the result gets low.