Country-Scale Photogrammetry and True Orthorectification Using Very-High-Resolution (VHR) Multi-View Satellite Imagery

This paper presents a fully automated system capable of processing country-scale archives of Very High Resolution (VHR) multi-view imagery. It performs image co-registration, stereo photogrammetry, surface modeling, and true-orthorectification, using novel techniques for detecting occlusions and shadows. The system is tested on regions up to 10,000 km² as part of the IARPA SMART program, https://www.iarpa.gov/research-programs/smart. Challenges exist in operating at this scale, including processing thousands of sparsely collected images in time, inconsistent spatial coverage, weather and seasonal conditions, and multi-sensor multi-resolution acquisition. We present several innovations to overcome these challenges and enable processing of large data sets spanning country-size areas while controlling computational costs.