Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
556119 ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 2011 11 Pages PDF
Abstract

We present a general framework to improve a vectorial building footprint database consisting of a set of 2D polygons. The aim of this improvement is to make the database more proper to subsequent 3D building reconstruction at a large scale. Each polygon is split into several simple polygons guided by a digital elevation model (DEM). We say that this segmentation is vectorial as we produce segmentations that intrinsically have simple polygonal shapes, instead of doing a raster segmentation of the DEM within the polygon then trying to simplify it in a vectorization step. The method is based on a Mumford and Shah like energy functional characterizing the quality of the segmentation. We simplify the problem by imposing that the segmentation edges have directions present in the input polygon over which the DEM is defined. We evaluate the validity of the proposed method on a very large dataset and discuss its pros and cons based on this evaluation.

► We tackles the problem of building reconstruction from a footprint and a DEM. ► The problem is separated between finding the height discontinuities then recovering continuous surfaces. ► The paper addresses the first issue by cutting the footprint into smaller footprints using height discontinuities from the DEM. ► This “vector segmentation” is achieved through an energy based split-and-merge method. ► The method is evaluated on a wide (1 square km) dense urban area.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Computer Science Information Systems
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