The Surface Extraction from TIN based Search-space Minimization (SETSM) algorithm

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) provide critical information for a wide range of scientific, navigational and engineering activities. Submeter resolution, stereoscopic satellite imagery with high geometric and radiometric quality, and wide spatial coverage are becoming increasingly accessible for generating stereo-photogrammetric DEMs. However, low contrast and repeatedly-textured surfaces, such as snow and glacial ice at high latitudes, and mountainous terrains challenge existing stereo-photogrammetric DEM generation techniques, particularly without a-priori information such as existing seed DEMs or the manual setting of terrain-specific parameters. To utilize these data for fully-automatic DEM extraction at a large scale, we developed the Surface Extraction from TIN-based Search-space Minimization (SETSM) algorithm. SETSM is fully automatic (i.e. no search parameter settings are needed) and uses only the sensor model Rational Polynomial Coefficients (RPCs). SETSM adopts a hierarchical, combined image- and object-space matching strategy utilizing weighted normalized cross-correlation with both original distorted and geometrically corrected images for overcoming ambiguities caused by foreshortening and occlusions. In addition, SETSM optimally minimizes search-spaces to extract optimal matches over problematic terrains by iteratively updating object surfaces within a Triangulated Irregular Network, and utilizes a geometric-constrained blunder and outlier detection in object space. We prove the ability of SETSM to mitigate typical stereo-photogrammetric matching problems over a range of challenging terrains. SETSM is the primary DEM generation software for the US National Science Foundation's ArcticDEM project.