Building Detection and Outlining in Multi-Modal Remote Sensor Data: A Stratified Approach

Exploitation of aerial sensor data for vectorized representation of urban structures is of great importance for urban modeling. Even if elevation data is available, extracting complex and irregular building shapes would become challenging. In this paper, we present a stratified approach for the extraction of building outlines consisting of two steps: Classification and vectorization. For classification, we use training data transfer to evaluate a dataset with no or little labeled data. Since the available reference data is also flawed, we use a self-developed interactive tool to adjust and improve the building shape before contrasting it with the classification results. Initial building polygons are slightly generalized and refined considering building shape characteristics. Hereby, Least-Squares adjustment is implemented to solve the best-fit problem of building edges with the input data by applying the Gauss-Helmert and Gauss-Markov Models. On the raster level, the resulting polygons achieved an accuracy of over 99% in the Potsdam dataset and almost 98% in the Munich dataset while on the vector level, the median building-wise deviations lie in sub-meter range. Although there were few mis-detections and, sometimes, considerable peak deviations for the Hausdorff distance, the compelling qualitative results attest to the robustness and validity of the proposed procedure.