Experiments in semiautonomous registration of disparate spatial data: two new techniques and a model for comparison

We present two new methods for the semiautonomous registration of spatial data from disparate sources, in particular image and elevation data. One method stems from the synthetic image idea first proposed by Horn and Bachman, while the second is a line alignment technique. The methods estimate the affine transform between digital terrain elevation data (DTED) and aerial photographs from the National High Altitude Photography (NHAP) program. We also propose a novel measure of transform consistency and demonstrate the quality of the results. Both systems are accessed via graphical interfaces which are not described here.