Automated Processing of Declassified KH-9 Hexagon Satellite Images for Global Elevation Change Analysis Since the 1970s ...

Observing changes in Earth surface topography is crucial for many Earth science disciplines. Documenting these changes over several decades at regional to global scale remains a challenge due to the limited availability of suitable satellite data before the year 2000. Declassified analog satellite i...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dehecq, Amaury, Gardner, Alex S., Alexandrov, Oleg, McMichael, Scott, Hugonnet, Romain, Shean, David, Marty, Mauro
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: ETH Zurich 2020
Subjects:
Stereo
Digital elevation model
Photogrammetry
Historical satellite imagery
Glacier changes
Uncertainty propagation
Alaska
European Alps
glacier
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000452191
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/452191
Description
Summary:Observing changes in Earth surface topography is crucial for many Earth science disciplines. Documenting these changes over several decades at regional to global scale remains a challenge due to the limited availability of suitable satellite data before the year 2000. Declassified analog satellite images from the American reconnaissance program Hexagon (KH-9), which surveyed nearly all land surfaces from 1972 to 1986 at meter to sub-meter resolutions, provide a unique opportunity to fill the gap in observations. However, large-scale processing of analog imagery remains challenging. We developed an automated workflow to generate Digital Elevation Models and orthophotos from scanned KH-9 mapping camera stereo images. The workflow includes a preprocessing step to correct for film and scanning distortions and crop the scanned images, and a stereo reconstruction step using the open-source NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline. The processing of several hundreds of image pairs enabled us to estimate reliable camera parameters ... : Frontiers in Earth Science, 8 ...

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