Potential and Limitation of PlanetScope Images for 2-D and 3-D Earth Surface Monitoring With Example of Applications to Glaciers and Earthquakes

The Planet PlanetScope (PS) CubeSat constellation acquires high-resolution optical images that cover the entire surface of the Earth daily, enabling an unprecedented capability to monitor the Earth’s surface changes. However, our analysis reveals artifacts of the geometry of PS images related to the imaging system and processing issues, limiting the usability of these data for various Earth science applications, including the monitoring of glaciers, dune motion, or the measurement of ground deformation due to earthquakes and landslides. Here, we analyze these artifacts and propose ways to remediate them. We use two examples to evaluate the data and assess the performance of our proposed approaches. The first is the ground deformation caused by the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence, California, USA, and the second is the 2018–2019 surge of the Shisper glacier in the Karakorum. Using an image correlation technique, we show that PS images exhibit several geometric artifacts, such as scene-to-scene misregistration, inconsistence geolocation accuracy between spectral bands, and topographic artifacts. Altogether, these artifacts make a quantitative analysis of ground displacement difficult and inaccurate. We present a method that remediates most of these geometric artifacts. In addition, we propose a framework for selecting the most appropriate images and a procedure for refining the rational function model (RFM) of unrectified images to monitor surface displacements and topography changes in 3-D. These tools should enhance the use of PS images for Earth science applications.