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Landmark Detection in Orbital Images Using Salience HistogramsNASA's planetary missions have collected, and continue to collect, massive volumes of orbital imagery. The volume is such that it is difficult to manually review all of the data and determine its significance. As a result, images are indexed and searchable by location and date but generally not by their content. A new automated method analyzes images and identifies "landmarks," or visually salient features such as gullies, craters, dust devil tracks, and the like. This technique uses a statistical measure of salience derived from information theory, so it is not associated with any specific landmark type. It identifies regions that are unusual or that stand out from their surroundings, so the resulting landmarks are context-sensitive areas that can be used to recognize the same area when it is encountered again. A machine learning classifier is used to identify the type of each discovered landmark. Using a specified window size, an intensity histogram is computed for each such window within the larger image (sliding the window across the image). Next, a salience map is computed that specifies, for each pixel, the salience of the window centered at that pixel. The salience map is thresholded to identify landmark contours (polygons) using the upper quartile of salience values. Descriptive attributes are extracted for each landmark polygon: size, perimeter, mean intensity, standard deviation of intensity, and shape features derived from an ellipse fit.
Document ID
20100012814
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Other - NASA Tech Brief
External Source(s)
http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/7837
Authors
Wagstaff, Kiri L. (California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Panetta, Julian (California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Schorghofer, Norbert (Hawaii Univ. HI, United States)
Greeley, Ronald (Arizona State Univ. AZ, United States)
PendletonHoffer, Mary (Arizona State Univ. AZ, United States)
bunte, Melissa (Arizona State Univ. AZ, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
April 1, 2010
Publication Information
Publication: NASA Tech Briefs, April 2010
Subject Category
Instrumentation And Photography
Report/Patent Number
NPO-46674
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.

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