9

Image Geometric Operations

Geometric operations include the shift, rotation and warping of images to a given shape or framework. In remote sensing applications, geometric operations are mainly used for the co-registration of images of the same scene acquired by different sensor systems or at different times or from different positions, and for rectifying an image to fit a particular coordinate system (geocoding). Image mosaic is a geometric operation that was commonly used in the early days of remote sensing image processing when computer power was inadequate for the massive demands of the geocoding process, but this is no longer the case. Once a set of adjacent images is accurately rectified to a map projection system, such as a UTM coordinate system (see Chapter 13 in Part Two for details) the images, though separate, are effectively in a mosaic. geometric distortions introduced during the imaging process, when a satellite or aircraft acquires images of the land surface. 9.1.1 Platform ight coordinates, sensor status and imaging geometry As shown in Figure 9.1, image geometry is fundamentally controlled by three sets of parameters:
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9.1 Image geometric deformation

An image taken from any sensor system is a distortion of the real scene. There are many sources of error since, for instance, any optical sensor system is a distorted filtered imaging system. Such source errors in sensor systems are usually corrected in the sensor calibrations carried out by the manufacturers during hardware maintenance; they are beyond the scope of this chapter. Our main concerns lie on the user side of remote sensing applications, in the

The platform flight coordinate system (x, y, z), where x is in the flight direction, z is orthogonal to x in the plane through the x axis and perpendicular to the Earths surface, and y is orthogonal to both x and z. The sensor 3D status is decided by orientation angles v, f, k in relation to the platform flight coordinate system (x, y, z). The coordinates (X, Y, Z) of the imaging position on the ground usually conform to a standard coordinatesystem(defined bymap projectionand datum).

The preferred imaging geometry for the optical sensors of most Earth observation satellites is that the satellite travels horizontally and parallel to the Earths curved surface with (x, y, z) matching (X, Y, Z) and sensor orientation angles (v, f, k) all being equal to 0. This is the configuration of nadir (vertical) imaging, which introduces minimal geometric distortion.

Essential Image Processing and GIS for Remote Sensing By Jian Guo Liu and Philippa J. Mason 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd