Building height estimation using Google Earth

In order to provide geometric information for the research of the relationship between a building's shape and its energy consumption, we propose a method to estimate building height by Google Earth. The procedure of this method is divided into three steps which include image tests, computation of the height of a certain building and computation of the height of any other buildings in the same remote sensing image. In order to evaluate the accuracy of the new method, heights of 21 buildings in Lin'an are firstly measured, and then computed by this method. Based on the data, RMS error and mean error of this method are compared with those of some other methods. From the comparison, it can be concluded that the new method has three advantages. First, the proposed method achieves higher precision in calculating building height for those buildings with a height of no more than 20 m and a slope no more than 3°. Second, with this method, both professional knowledge of RS and any parameters of sun and satellite are not required during the computation of building height. Third, the method is economical because most of RS images from Google Earth are allowed to be freely used.