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- derived analog images (e.g. stereo-orthophotos, array camera records
converted into pictorial form)
- derived digital images (e.g. digitized frame camera photographs)
The photogrammetric instrumentation presently used in production is designed
for processing of original and derived analog images and has the capability
for the performance of processes with satisfactory accuracy and efficiency.
In the last years the first steps have been taken towards the design. of
photogrammetric digital image processing instrumentation for processing and
analysis of original and derived digital images. The basic motivation for
this development is the full exploitation of the potential offered by the
advances in computer and digital image processing technologies (Case, 1982).
It is expected that in the end, computing devices with appropriate display
units may replace the conventional photogrammetric hardware for data
processing, and shift the development of processing techniques and related
functions entirely into the realm of software design.
. This could be viewed as the natural extension of the concepts underlying the
design of analytical instruments in which the digitizing of information
stored on analog images occurs at the compilation stage and encompasses only
the information about selected features. It is worth. noting that .the
processing techniques of properly designed analytical instruments allow for
the exploitation of all the imagery acquired by any kind of sensors from
airborne or space platforms under the provision that the digitally acquired
records are converted into an appropriate pictorial input form. The main
deficiency of this approach is the incompatibility of conventional techniques
for metric information processing with the image manipulation processes
inherent in the techniques of digital image enhancement and analysis. Hence,
the design of a digital photogrammetric system that would permit the
unification of photogrammetric digital processing techniques with the
techniques of digital image analysis seems to be a worthwhile objective.
Such a system would allow for simultaneous exploitation of digital processes
used in photogrammetry for the processing of metric information, of digital
processes used in analysis of remotely sensed data (such as edge enhancement,
contrast stretching and classification), and of digital processes used in
image understanding, image matching and change detection (Rosenfeld, 1984).
Consequently in a digital system of this type the potential for automation of
processes should also be considerably increased.
Instead of selective digitizing of information the concept of photogrammetric
digital image processing implies the existence of original input information
obtained by the conversion of an analog image into a numerical form
represented by a two-dimensional array of digital gray level samples (Helava,
1982), The development of linear array cameras capable of acquiring from
space platforms stereo-images with good base to height ratios indicates the
possibility of using original digital records for production and revision of
maps. However the very small image scales, the limited attainable spatial
resolution of sensors, the stringent requirements for the stability of the
spatial attitude of the sensors and the continuity of forward movement of the
platform combined with the relatively complex quasi-cilyndrical geometry of
images ("pushbroom" mode of image formation) will impose limitations on the
interpretability of desired features and on the extraction of metric
information. Even with the anticipation of the improvements of spatial
resolution of sensors these imagery may be most optimistically expected to be
used for revision of maps in 1:100 000 and mapping in smaller scales (Welch,
1982, Konecny et al., 1982, Chevral et al., 1981). Consequently for a long
time to come, due to the requirement for the information of high metric
quality, most of the source information will be acquired in analog form by