EVALUATION OF DIGITAL SURFACE MODELS (DSMS) GENERATED FROM ALOS PRISM DATA

Lan-Wei Wang
National Earth Observation Group, Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378, ACT, 2601, Australia Tel: 61 2 62499286; fax 61 2 62499910 Lan-Wei.Wang@ga.gov.au

Abstract The Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) was launched on January 24 th, 2006 by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in a Sunsynchronous orbit. It carries three remote sensing instruments: Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type-2 (AVNIR-2), Panchromatic Remotesensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM) and Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR). The PRISM sensor consists of three sets of telescopes for forward, nadir and backward viewing with each telescope providing 2.5 metre spatial resolution. These specifications facilitate generation of precise Digital Surface Models (DSMs) with accuracy sufficient for 1:25 000 scale maps. Geoscience Australia (GA) has been acquiring ALOS data since early 2006 and holds an extensive archive of PRISM images over Australia and New Zealand that are suitable for DSMs generation. DSMs are an important source of data for many applications such as studies of soil salinity, landscape evolution and catchment management. However, DSMs covering wide areas in Australia are typically at a fairly coarse scale. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 1 second (~30 m) data is currently the DSM with the highest resolution and Australia-wide consistency. There is a growing demand for a higher resolution DSM throughout Australia and the availability of ALOS PRISM data makes it economically feasible to improve the resolution and accuracy of the terrain data at a National scale. As an ALOS Data Node for the Oceania region, GA has software to generate PRISM DSMs from an extensive archive. This paper presents assessment results for PRISM DSMs over various terrain types in Australia when compared with reference Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) DSMs, Ground Control Points (GCPs) and SRTM data.

Introduction Digital Surface Models (DSMs) are used in a large variety of engineering disciplines and can be generated by several techniques. They can be generated by ground survey, stereo photogrammetry, laser scanning and SAR Interferometry. Among these techniques, satellite borne datasets are seen as a practical means of developing a cost effective solution to improve the National DSM. ALOS PRISM sensor has three independent cameras for viewing nadir, forward and backward producing triplet images along the satellite track. Forward and backward telescopes are inclined at +24 and -24 degrees from nadir to realise a base-to-height ratio of 1.0 (Imai et al., 2008). The PRISM triplet images are expected to be used for generating high-precision stable DSM. GA holds an extensive archive of PRISM imagery that is suitable for DSM generation. Figure 1 shows the availability of near-cloud free (less than 10% cloud) PRISM triplets over Australia.

Figure 1 Colour density map for available near-cloud free PRISM triplets over Australia

This study compares the PRISM DSMs against LIDAR 1m DSMs, differential Global Positioning System (dGPS) tracking data, Ground Control Points (GCPs) and SRTM 1 arc second (~30m) DSMs.

Test sites and datasets Two test sites were selected for this study. The first test site is located at Lower Darling Basin, western New South Wales. The topography of this test area is mainly flat plains and the elevation varies between 40 and 90 metres above Mean Sea Level (MSL). High accuracy LiDAR DSM is available for this test site for comparison. LiDAR DSM was acquired from a fixed wing aircraft between June and August 2009. The vertical accuracy of this data set is 0.15m. Figure 2 shows the location of the Lower Darling Basin test site and the LiDAR coverage overlaid on the PRISM imagery.

Figure 2: Lower Darling Basin test site (left) and LiDAR coverage overlaid on the PRISM imagery (right)

The second test site is located at Canberra and surrounding areas of south eastern New South Wales. The topography of this test area consists of a mixture of flat plains and highly undulating mountain ranges and the elevation varies between 580 and 1500 metres above MSL. The medium to highly undulating areas are covered with tall eucalypt forests, with the flatter areas vegetated with grasses and sparse tree cover. A continuous series of points, defining the three dimensional location of road centreline, are available for this test site. The points acquired using dGPS technology were generated as part of the GA Landsat Pass Control Project (Wang et al., 2002) and various GA ground survey trips. dGPS tracking data have a vertical accuracy of 2m. A small number of Ground Control Points (GCPs) are also available for this test site that has a vertical accuracy of 1m. Figure 3 shows the location of the Canberra test site with the dGPS tracking points and GCPs overlaid on the PRISM imagery.

Figure 3: Canberra test site (left) and dGPS tracking points and GCPs overlaid on the PRISM imagery (right)

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 1 arc second (~30 m) data is currently the DSM with the highest resolution and Australia-wide consistency. Although the accuracy of the SRTM DSM is not adequate to be used as reference data, we have applied visual assessment on the details of topography and drainage features shown on the PRISM DSMs and SRTM DSMs. The list of the PRISM stereo triplets used to derive PRISM DSMs is summarised in table 1. This report describes results of comparisons of PRISM DSMs with overlapping coverage available for this study.
Table 1 PRISM test scenes (stereo triplet) No. 1 2 3 4 5 Test Site Lower Darling Basin Lower Darling Basin Lower Darling Basin Australian Capital Territory Australian Capital Territory Obs. Date 2007/06/04 2007/12/05 2008/12/07 2007/04/11 2009/01/14

Method and results In this study, PRISM DSMs were generated from the Digital surface model / Ortho-rectified image Generation Software for ALOS-PRISM (DOGS-AP) provided by JAXA to each ALOS Data Node. The geometric model of PRISM sensor consists of the static interior and dynamic exterior parameters. The interior parameters are the CCD unit camera parameters and are calibrated and validated with dense ground control points. The exterior parameters including the satellite orbit and attitude data are

measured by the onboard GPS receiver and onboard star tracker (Takaku & Tadono, 2009). GCPs can be used to refine the exterior parameters. In this study, the accuracies of the PRISM DSMs generated with 1 GCP (absolute DSM) and without GCP (relative DSM) are assessed. The DSM generation algorithm used in this study is the correlation based stereo images matching algorithm exclusively developed for PRISM (Takaku et al., 2005). The accuracy and quality of DSM products depends on various factors, such as geo-referencing model accuracy, ground textures, matching parameters and filtering parameters (from operation Manual). No manual editing of the DSM was carried out and accuracy assessments were made only on the automatically generated elevation values. For the Lower Darling Basin test site, one GCP located on relative flat terrain was collected from the ortho-rectified PRISM imagery derived from the National Ground Control Point (NGCP) project (Barr et al., 2010). The height of this GCP was extracted from the LiDAR DSM. For the Canberra test site, one GCP was collected from the ground GPS survey. PRISM DSMs were derived with an output posting of 10 metres for assessment. Figure 4 displays the LiDAR DSM and PRISM DSMs derived for the Lower Darling Basin test site and the DSM differencing results within the overlapping area are summarised in Table 2.

Figure 4 LiDAR DSM (left) and PRISM DSM (right) generated from PRISM triplet acquired on 2008/12/07

Table 2 PRISM DSMs assessment for the Lower Darling Basin test site

Target Reference PRISM DSM DSM OBS. Date 2007/06/04 2007/12/05 2008/12/07 LiDAR LiDAR LiDAR

No. of GCPs used to generate PRISM DSM 0 GCP 1 GCP 0 GCP 1 GCP 0 GCP 1 GCP

Target minus Reference (m) MIN -43 -46 -42 -48 -43 -36 MAX 48 47 69 53 37 36 MEA N 4.4 -1.4 8.9 -0.3 -4.9 1.0

STD DEV (m) 1.4 1.4 2.0 1.9 1.4 1.3

For the Canberra test site, there is no suitable reference DSMs for comparison. dGPS tracking data and a small number of GCPs were the best available independent datasets for assessing the vertical accuracy of the PRISM DSMs. The locations of these reference data points were identified in Figure 3. The positioning of tracked roads and GCPs are in relatively treeless terrain. This evaluation is limited by the fact that tracking data and GCPs were generally acquired along low relative relief topography (highways) and comparison with this data may not truly reflect the DSM accuracy in high relief or densely forested terrain (Oliver et al., 2004). The comparisons between PRISM DSMs and overlapping reference data are summarised in Table 3. The results of assessment for both test sites are consistent with other reports (Wolff & Gruen, 2008) available in the scientific literature about PRISM derived DSMs.

Table 3 PRISM DSMs comparison with dGPS tracking data and independent GCPs for the Canberra test site Target Reference data No. of GCPs Target minus STD PRISM DSM and Number of used to generate Reference (m) DEV OBS. Date points PRISM DSM (m) MIN MAX MEA N 2007/04/11 2009/01/14 2007/04/11 2009/01/14 dGPS - 14410 dGPS - 14410 GCPs - 25 GCPs - 25 0 GCP 1 GCP 0 GCP 1 GCP 0 GCP 1 GCP 0 GCP 1 GCP -25 -22 -27 -25 -3 -3 -4 -4 22 22 21 19 4 5 4 4 0.6 0.7 1.0 -0.45 2.0 0.5 -0.8 0.1 3.3 3.1 3.4 3.0 2.2 2.0 2.1 2.0

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 1 arc second (~30 m) data is currently the DSM with the highest resolution and Australia-wide consistency. Through visual evaluation, Figure 5 illustrated that PRISM DSM represents topography and defines drainage features with a higher level of detail than the SRTM DSM.

Figure 5 SRTM 1 arc second DSM (left) and PRISM DSM (right) generated from PRISM triplet acquired on 2009/01/14

PRISM image quality PRISM images showed some radiometric artefacts that are induced by onboard image compression which uses a lossy compression scheme (such as JPEG compression scheme). It is impossible to rectify this artefact through post-processing algorithms as some information in the initial image has been lost. This artefact can have a negative influence on the stereo-matching algorithm as it introduces some false patterns that may confuse the matching process (Bignone and Umakawa, 2008) as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6 Example of Block artefacts

In addition to the radiometric artefacts, repeating undulations were identified in the resulting elevation images as illustrated by Figure 7. These occasional undulations are caused by an attitude fluctuation of the satellite (Takaku & Tadono, 2010). Such attitude fluctuations have an impact on the resulting elevation image of around 3 metres (around 1km interval on the ground) and 1 metre (around 100m interval on the ground).

Figure 7 Undulation observed in PRISM DSMs

In order to attenuate effects of undulation illustrated above, and also false matching due to the radiometric artefact, PRISM individual elevation measures were merged with an output posting of 10 metres (from initial resolution of 2.5 metres at nadir angle) in this study.

Conclusions We have validated DSMs generation using ALOS PRISM image data over two test sites. In comparison with the LiDAR DSM with 0.15m accuracy over Lower Darling Basin test site, PRISM DSMs achieved a standard deviation of 1.3 1.9m with 1 GCP and 1.4 2.0m without GCP. For the Canberra test site, PRISM DSMs have a standard deviation of around 3.1m with 1 GCP and around 3.4m without GCP when assessed against the 2m accuracy dGPS tracking data. In comparison with 25 independent ground surveyed GCPs with 1m accuracy, PRISM DSMs achieved a standard deviation of around 2.0m with 1 GCP and around 2.2m without GCP. There is an error of 10m height bias in the relative PRISM DSMs and it can be rectified with only one GCP. Visual examinations of the DSMs show that PRISM DSMs represent actual topography and exhibit higher levels of drainage pattern details than the SRTM 1 arc second DSM. With the development of the NGCP project, GCPs can be collected for PRISM DSM generation. This evaluation shows that PRISM DSMs are suitable for improving the resolution and accuracy of the terrain data at a national scale. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank JAXA for providing the ALOS PRISM DSM generation software. References Barr, S., Wang, L., Ravanbakhsh, M., Pasfield, M. and Lewis, A., 2010, national Ground Control Point database: a new national data set for Australia. The 15th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Association Conference, Alice Springs, Australia Bignone, F. and Umakawa, H., 2008, Assessment of ALOS PRISM digital elevation model extraction over Japan. International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing & Spatial Information Sciences, Beijing, China, Vol. XXXVII (B1):1135-1138. Imai, Y., Akamatsu, Y., Mori, M., Shirai, N., Maruya, M. and Ohyama, H., 2008, An accuracy assessment of DSMs and Orthoimages derived from ALOS/PRISM and their availability in forestry. International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing & Spatial Information Sciences, Beijing, China, Vol. XXXVII (B8):1021-1026. Oliver, S., Wang, L. and Smith, C.J.H, 2004, Evaluation of digital elevation models for an improved Australian national DEM. The 12th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Association Conference, Perth, Australia, 10 pages (on CDROM). Takaku , J., Futamura, N., Iijima, T., Shimada, M. and Shibasaki, R., 2005, High resolution DEM generation from ALOS PRISM data - pre-launch

simulation and assessment plans. Proceedings of IGARSS2005, Seoul, Korea, Vol. 1. Takaku, J. and Tadono, T., 2010, High resolution DSM generation from ALOS PRISM - processing status and influence of attitude fluctuation, Proceedings of IGARSS2010, Hawaii, USA. Takaku, J. and Tadono, N., 2009, PRISM geometric validation and DSM generation status. Proceedings of 1st ALOS PI Symposium, Kyoto, Japan, 4 pages. Wang, L., Smith, C.J.H. and Higgs, N., 2002, The Refinement of Landsat 7 Passes of the Australian Continent with Accurate Ground Control Points, The 12th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Association Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 9 pages (on CDROM). Wolff, K. and Gruen, A., 2008, Up to date DSM generation using high resolution satellite image data, International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing & Spatial Information Sciences, Beijing, China, Vol. XXXVII (B1):11031108

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