Semi automatic road extraction from a pair of digital aerial images using epipolar geometry and dynamic programming

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a methodology for semi-automatic road
extraction from aerial digital image pairs by using dynamic programming and
epipolar geometry. The method uses both images from where each road feature pair
is extracted. The operator identifies the corresponding road features and s/he selects
sparse seed points along them. After all road pairs have been extracted, epipolar
geometry is applied to determine the automatic point-to-point correspondence
between each correspondent feature. Finally, each correspondent road pair is
georeferenced by photogrammetric intersection. Experiments were made with rural
aerial images. The results led to the conclusion that the methodology is robust and
efficient, even in the presence of shadows of trees and buildings or other
irregularities.