ıhul 2004 
STEREO MEASUREMENT ON IMAGESTATION 
WITH STARIMAGER - AIRBORNE THREE-LINE SCANNER - IMAGERY 
M. Madani', Y. Wang', K. Tsuno”, K. Morita 
'Z/1 Imaging Corporation 
230 Business Park Boulevard, Madison, AL 35757, USA 
"STARLABO Corporation 
1-20-1, Sanshin Bldg., Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0002, JAPAN 
E-mail: msmadani{@ziimaging.com, ywang(w ziimaging.com, Tsuno-koichi@sei.co.jp, morita@iis.u.tokyo.ac.jp 
Commission II, WG 3 
KEY WORDS: Airborne Three-Line-Scanner, Stereo Measurement, Image Rectification, 3-D Feature Collection, Accuracy 
Assessment 
ABSTRACT: 
STARIMAGER is a helicopter-borne high resolution digital Three-Line Scanner (TLS) imaging system developed by STARLABO 
Corporation jointly with the University of Tokyo and ETH-Hoenggerberg for large scale mapping, linear-shaped ground objects 
investigation (such as roads, rivers, railways, pipelines, etc.), and remote sensing applications. As with other airborne and 
spaceborne linear imaging sensors, STARIMAGER is equipped with GPS/IMU to record the exterior orientation parameters of each 
obtained image line per forward, nadir and backward views during a flight. This paper describes the integration and ingestion of the 
TLS images that have been rectified and triangulated by STARLABO Corporation into Z/I Imaging Corporation's 3-D feature and 
DTM collection and orthophoto production products. The paper also presents some field results of the 3-D feature collection and 
accuracy evaluation with real TLS flight data. 
1. INTRODUCTION 2. STARIMAGER 
STARIMAGER is a helicopter-borne high resolution digital 2.1 Principle and features 
Three-Line Scanner (TLS) imaging system (Figure 1). 
The stabilizer with the STARIMAGER TLS camera is equipped 
on the arm outside a helicopter and absorbs the vibration by the 
helicopter movement. As shown in Figure 2, four CCD line 
sensor packages are placed in parallel on the focal plane of the 
camera lens system. Three of the sensor packages are for 
forward, nadir, and backward looking, and each sensor package 
has three line sensors that are R (Red), G (Green), and B (Blue) 
to generate color images. The fourth CCD line sensor package 
contains a single near infrared (NIR) line sensor located 
between the nadir and backward looking RGB color sensor 
packages. Each line sensor can collect a high resolution, two- 
dimensional image in accordance with the flight of the 
helicopter, bringing 10 images in total which are 100% 
overlapped with each other (Figure 2). The position and attitude 
data of the TLS camera are acquired with GPS (Global 
Positioning Svstem) and IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit). An 
Figure 1. STARIMAGER antenna for the GPS is equipped on the top of the helicopter, 
while a set of fiber optic gyroscopes is placed on the TLS 
camera inside the stabilizer. Such a spatial data acquisition 
system does not ideally in principle need aerial triangulation 
with ground control points at all, as described in (Murai, 1994). 
STARLABO Corporation has acquired the patent rights for the 
system in Japan, the USA, Europe, Australia, and Canada 
(Murai, 1993). 
  
Line sensor systems are widely used in satellites for the 
acquisition of panchromatic and multi-spectral imagery, while 
area sensor systems are used as the extension of analogue aerial 
cameras (Murai, 1994). Thesc two different digital sensors have 
been intensively studied as airborne fully digital spatial data 
acquisition systems. The line sensor system, however, is easier 
to manufacture than the arca scnsor system due to the 
constraints of semiconductor manufacturing processes. This 
paper briefly explains the system configuration, features, and 
applications of the STARIMAGER sensor system and how this 
type of imagery with its orientation and camera data arc used in 
the Z/1 Imaging product line allowing for 3-D feature collection, 
DTM generation, and orthophoto production. 
The advantages of STARIMAGER are described as follows 
(also described in (Tsuno, 2002)):