Classification of urban features from Intergraph's Z/I Imaging DMC high resolution images for integration into a change detection flowline within Ordnance Survey

In 2005 ordnance survey, Britain's national mapping agency, acquired a new digital aerial camera - the integraph Z/I imaging digital mapping camera (DMC). The high spatial resolution of the DMC makes it especially suitable for classification-based feature extraction. Also, the DMC provides near infrared (NIR) digital imagery, a type of information that has never before been used by ordnance survey. These characteristics make the DMC a potentially useful tool for the automatic extraction of vegetated features and the detection of man-made features in urban areas. This image classification process is considered to be a very important step as it constitutes the basis for a future automatic (or semi-automatic) change detection method which could ultimately be integrated within the OS production flowline.