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Road Damage Detection From High Resolution Satellite Images Based on

Machine Learning

Conference Paper · July 2015

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Idrissa Coulibaly R. Lepage

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 Road Damage Detection From High Resolution
Satellite Images Based on Machine Learning
Idrissa Coulibaly, Student Member, IEEE, Richard Lepage, Member, IEEE, Michèle Saint-Jacques
École de Technologie Supérieure
1100 Rue Notre-Dame Ouest, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Email: i.coulibaly@ieee.com
Abstract— Road extraction is a topical research subject be-
cause of complexity due to it large topological variability. Increas-
ing the spatial resolution generates noise which makes extraction
difficult, especially in case of major disaster in an urban context.
This problem increases false alarm rate and generally affects
the performance of road extraction algorithm. Our aim is to
improve the quality of roads extraction and to determine the
changed and unchanged portions of the road network during an
earthquake. The proposed method has four main steps : First, we
use multiresolution analysis (MRA) to reduce noise because of the
great road variability and noise occasioned by high heterogeneity.
Second, segmentation is performed on post-event remote sensing
image by spectral angle (SA) algorithm. Road damage caused by
rubble from collapsed building must be detected. Third, damaged
road network detected from post-event remote sensing image
using object based one-class support vector machine (SVM)
classifier, where textural features local binary pattern (LBP)
and spectral information used. Finally, the results of damaged
roads detection is estimated by statistical measurements. The
characterization is performed on two image (pre-event and
post-event) representing urban disaster area (Haiti, in January
2010), captured by Quickbird satellite. Our approach present a
reduction in false alarms and a gain in road damage detection.
Index Terms—Change Detection, Damage Assessment, Disaster
Management, Satellite Image, Road Detection, Machine Learn-
ing, Textural Analysis.
I. I NTRODUCTION
URING PAST YEARS , the frequency of occurrence of ma-
D jor disasters has been increasing with serious conse-
quences on human life and the global economy. Damage
to human infrastructures such as communication, land trans-
portation, energy and hydroelectric networks were not spared
in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Port-au-
Prince, Haiti in January 2010. Accurate and up-to-date road
information are essential for both effective urban planning
and disaster management. Mapping of road networks and
their status remain very important and critical for the first
responders and experts from international organizations just
after major disaster. Very high resolution image have been used
in urban damage detection and assessment, such as building
damage detection and road damage detection [1]. There is very
little studies focused on automatic road damage detection and
automatic methods are urgently required. So one of our objec-
tives is to explore a new automatic road damage detection in
a dense heterogeneous environment. The use of both spectral
978-1-4673-7119-3/15/$31.00
2015
and texture information is a significant contribution. Since the
applicability of automatic change detection approach is usually
accompanied by manual trial-and-error procedures or by using
classical thresholding methods, manual image interpretation is
still the most common way to generate an efficient earthquake
damage map [2].
Our aim is to provide support to photo-interpreters work
to improve detection of any likely damaged or non-damaged
road from very high spatial resolution images in the disaster
aftermath. In an image, a large variability of the road character-
istics and some details that characterize these linear structures
are observed. Those structures change according to the image
resolution, so we had developed a new multi-scale method. A
multi-level combined segmentation and classification approach
was used to extract potentially damage zones from the post-
crisis Ikonos imagery [3]. This new filtering approach is an
adaptation of the Lowe’s SIFT descriptors (Scale Invariant
Features Transform) [4] in the first step. To appreciate the de-
tectability degree of road graphs (blocked road and unblocked
road), we use the algorithm for extracting roads based on the
spectral angle [5] and one-class SVM classifier. To objectively
measure the evolution of the detection results, we considered
three metrics: recovery rate, accuracy rate and quality [6].
Our paper is organized as follows: In Sect. 2, we introduce
pyramid model representation based on the scale-space behav-
ior of roads. Then, we presente SA algorithm, texture features
based on LBP and the one-class SVM classifier. In Sect. 3, we
present our flowchart and the different steps included. While
the Sect. 4 shows that the approach gives reasonable results for
which we have evaluated the performance based on a reference
image. We conclude the paper in Sect. 5.
II. M ULTI -S CALE ROAD E XTRACTION
A. Multiresolution Analysis (MRA)
One way to describe an image and its components is to
generate simple versions of the image and analyze the level
of information lost following successive simplifications of the
image. In an image, a large variability of road characteristics
and some details that characterize these linear structures are
observed. According to image spatial resolution, the percep-
tion of structures changes. The task of road finding requires
elaborated methods for the abstraction of details.
c IEEE
 It helps highlighting relevant information without the need
for additional processing, and at the same time removes details
that are not required for subsequent analysies [2]. Carvalho et
al., [7] use the multiresolution wavelet analysis, the à trous
algorithm to separate detail levels ranging from fine to coarce
and smoothed representation. The pyramidal representation
is based on the first detection step of the SIFT key points
algorithm [4]. The method uses a concept of representation
with multiple trapezoidal pyramids, which allows process-
ing of multispectral images at various resolution levels and
scales. The treatment is performed on three dimensions :
the cartesian coordinates (x, y) and the scale factor σ. The
images are distinguished by factors of scales separated by a
fixed coefficient (k), calculated to discretize the scales space
following a geometrical progression σ, kσ, k 2 σ, . . . , 2σ. The
filtering process is applied recursively until the last image.
This last one is reduced by a factor two on each dimension.
Sub-sampling and some interpolation technique (bi-linear in-
terpolation) are applied on the last filtered image for other
subsequent levels (Fig. 1). Pyramid allows to avoid noise and
locate infrastructures of interest. It also helps to determine
appropriate level of scale to found best detection.
In = I0 Initialization
Filter of level (n) to reduce
Jn = Fn (In) frequency content
Subsampling level (n) by
In+1 = En (Jn) factor 2 in each dimension
In = In-1 Next high level
Fig. 1. Process for building a pyramid with (n) levels
B. Road Extraction Algorithm based on Spectral Angle
To estimate the detectability rate of a road network, we use
an algorithm for detecting roads based on the modified spectral
angle [5]. In [5], the authors present an interesting road extrac-
tion technique. The technique uses the spectral information to
distinguish roads other land uses. For a multispectral image,
the SA is taken between the reference vector pixel and the
current vector pixel. For a multispectral image with M spectral
bands, the SA is defined as:
v
M
X
uM
uX XM
−1
SA = cos ( r(b).p(b)/t r(b)2 p(b)2 ) (1)
b=1 b=1 b=1
b being the spectral band, r is the reference pixel and p the
current pixel. The SA theory is based on angle evaluation
between a reference vector pixel and a current vector pixel
of multispectral image. The smaller the angle, the greater the
similarity between the two pixels. The resulting image contains
all roads in a darker color. On the resulting image, we apply
Opposite gradient direction The highest among the opposing
are found on the road vectors of neighboring scalar
boundaries product determines the direction
of the road
gradient a1
b1
Road
(a) (b)
Fig. 2. Gradient representation and the roads: (a) Gradient direction toward
the roads; (b) Computation of the direction and scalar values for each pixel.
to SA image result a line detection algorithm that uses a
gradient constraint to determine the pixels delineating the road
and a vectorization technique to remove non aligned vertices.
Removal of non maximum scalar values and the highest scalar
value is obtained between a1 and b1 (Fig. 2). This method
is described in [8]. Then we can complete road extraction
by refinement. After the previous part, paths can be extracted
from the image. In the real world, the distance between two
road junctions should be lower than one pixel, if not they
are removed. In other side, roads contain smooth curves and
do not have sharp turns. To apply this property we can split
paths which contain a sharp angle between two road segment
if not, they correspond to noise and do not provide important
information, so they are removed also.
III. DAMAGE D ETECTION
A. Features Based on Local Binary Pattern
Roads network presents many challenges especially because
of many artifacts, especially in a disaster context. There exist
some textures for urban roads. Wang et al., [9] proposed a
new approach based on machine learning training with the
Local Binary Pattern (LBP) operator to extract main road
from satellite images. They use many features reflecting road
characteristics and train classifiers with AdaBoost to build a
cascade of classifiers. The LBP operator [10] has been widely
used in various applications. The operator assigns a label to
every pixel of an image by thresholding the 3x3-neighborhood
of each pixel with the center pixel value and considering
the result as a binary number. The histogram of 28 = 256
different labels can then be used as a texture descriptor (Fig.3).
This operator has been extended to use neighborhoods of
Fig. 3. The basic LBP operator
different sizes. Using a circular neighborhood and bilinearly
interpolating values at non-integer pixel coordonates allow any
radius and number of pixels in the neighborhood. The notation
(P, R) is generally used for pixel neighborhoods to refer to
P sampling points on a circle of radius R. The calculation of
the LBP codes can be easily done in a single scan through the
image. The value of the LBP code of a pixel (xc , yc ) is given
by:
p−1
X Road Reference Map
LBPP,R = s(gp − gc )2p
p=0
(2)
where gc corresponds to the gray value of the center pixel
(xc , yc ), gp refers to gray value of P equally spaced pixels on
a circle of radius R, and s defines a thresholding function as
follows: (
1 if x ≥ 0
s(x) = (3)
0 if otherwise
B. Change Detection Using One-class SVM
It is difficult to extract information from the rubble on the
roads (i.e. road blockage) from the image. After detecting
roads and removing some vertices, the remaining roads can
be classified as damaged or non-damaged. The pattern classi-
fication approach using one-class SVM has been successfully
used for many applications [11]. This supervised classification
algorithm is developed by Scholkopf et al. [12]. It consists in
defining a boundary around the target samples (only positive
examples) if possible, while minimizing the chance of accept-
ing outliers. Li and Xu [13] used a one-class SVM to avoid
spectral confusion between the rubble on roads and land cover
types outside the roads. Using the kernel function to project
input vectors into feature space, nonlinear decision bounderies
are allowed. Generally, four types of kernels are used: linear,
polynomial, sigmoid, and Gaussian radial basis function (RBF)
kernel.
IV. M ETHODOLOGY
The proposed method is presented in this section. The
organization of this method is shown in Fig. 4. The details
of the steps are listed as follows:
(1) Generation of scale-space : The pyramidal representation
is based on that used by Lowe [4] during the initial step of
the detection key points of his SIFT algorithm. This approach
is explained in II-A
(2) Initial road detection map : this operator is applied
in conjunction with the MRA. Its mode operation mode is
explained in Section II-B
(3) Evaluation : To compare the resulting image with
another one, a projection towards the base of the pyramid
is necessary. Selecting the image for the projection is based
on the criterion of recovery rate rather than the frame at the
same scale. The principle of selective projection matches the
information from one higher octave to improve the quality
of the result. This operation is performed to loop back the
information extracted from a highter level to a lower level
road, up to the original image. A first quantitative assessment
is made at this level of the process. The reference road map is
Post-Disaster Remote Sensing Image Pre-Disaster Remote Sensing Image
Recursive Filter
Manually
Variable Gaussian Kernel By MRA
Extraction Roads
Initial Road Map
by SA Algorithm + Road Vectorization
Evaluation/Metrics
Texture Analysis Spectral-Spatial
by LBP (Histogram) Informations
Classification
Road Damage Detection by OC-SVM
Final Result
Damage Statistics
Fig. 4. Flowchart showing different steps and corresponding sections of
proposed method
generated by hand drawing method. Following the concept of
error matrix, the evaluation matrices for accuracy assessment
of road surface detection can be defined at the pixel level as
follows: (1) Recovery rate= T P/(T P + F N ); (2) Accuracy
rate= F P/(T P + F P ); (3) Quality= T P/(T P + F P + F N );
In the above equation, T P (true positive) is the number of
road surface pixels correctly identified, F N (false negative) is
the number of road surface pixels identified as other objects,
F P (false positive) is the number of non-road pixels identified
as road surfaces.
(4) Classifier one-class SVM : The whole image is seg-
mented into two categories: roads damage and non-damage
roads pixels group adding textural characteristics (histogram)
from the LBP descriptors. The damage roads pixels group
includes thoses feature vectors that have spectral reflectance
similar to the rubbles (only pixels representative of damage
roads were selected). The Gaussian RBF was used as the ker-
nel function. C (panalty) and γ (kernel) parameters governing
the SVM were respectively 100 and 0, 33. The training data
were used to train the support vector machine and the resulting
model was used to classify the whole image into two features,
as shown in Fig. 5.
V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULT AND A NALYSIS
The study area is devastating earthquake in Port-au-Prince
(Haiti, January 2010). Most of buildings and roads network
were damaged and collapsed. Roads network was partially
bloked by the rubble from damage building. We apply our
algortihm from Quickbird images multi-spectral bands with
2,4 meter spatial resolution.
First, qualitative assessment of the results of classifcation
approach is undertaken by visual inspection in Fig. 5. For the
road extraction by SA, additional filtering has been previously
applied to reduce disparities between road segments that
hindered the extraction process. The joint use of MRA with
SA reduced the rate of false alarms and thus increased the VI. C ONCLUSION
recovery rate and the quality of the extraction [14]. Despite The joint use of MRA and SA in the detection process
this fact, accuracy rate fell significantly (Tab. I). has helped to reduce the classification error rates in the fisrt
Fig. 5 shows the roads damage detection result in the step of process. Subsequently, the classification by the one-
adjacent area. Most damaged road were identified, even if class SVM for urban roads damage detection was presented
there are still some damage buildings wrongly identified as and his performance at spectral and textural features were
undamaged roads (Tab. II). The roads damaged detection rate also evaluated. The classifier one-class SVM is an effective
is low, this may be reflect that the road damage shows a method by combined both differents informations. The use
very similar spectral signature with the neighboring land cover of a training datasets automatically for the features selection
types, in this context of disaster. Also some roads are poorly can provide good results. Using RADAR images could be
affected by rubble. The good performance of one-class SVM investigated also.
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(c) Results from OC-SVM (d) Zoomed results

Fig. 5. Road damage classification with one-class SVM

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