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CV 2000 
, Belgium. 
torial.html 
  
EXTRACTION OF BUILDING FOOTPRINTS 
FROM AIRBORNE LASER SCANNER DATA AND ORTHO IMAGE 
Hiroshi TAKEDA Naoko KURISAKI Wentao CHE 
Dept. of Spatial Information, Kokusai-Kogyo Co., LTD. 
3-6-1 Asahigaoka, hino-city, Tokyo, 191-0065 JAPAN 
{htake, naoko_kurisaki, wentao_che} @kkc.co.jp 
Commission V, WG V/2 
KEY WORDS: Airborne Laser Scanner, LIDAR, Digital Surface Model (DSM), Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Ortho Image, 
Extraction of building footprints, Canny Filter, Hough Transform, Digital Maps (DM), 3D City Models 
ABSTRACT: 
The Airborne Laser Scanner can collect the object surface point clouds efficiently for wide area within a short period of time. And it 
has been recognized as available surveying tools in the field of 3D measurement. At the same time to the measurement of laser 
scanning, we took the Aero Photographs by using the surveying digital camera. The purpose of this study is to automatically extract 
the building footprints as the base maps in the urban area from the laser point clouds and ortho image. So far, the methods of 
building extraction by using the laser point clouds or the aero photographs have been proposed. Referring to their studies, it is hard 
for the extraction of building footprints from the Airborne Laser Scanner data. Because, in the case of measurement with the 
Airborne Laser Scanner, the laser beams are not always guaranteed to hit the building edges, because the laser beams are irradiated 
as a random direction. In the case of only using the laser point clouds, it is too expensive to obtain the evident building footprints, 
because it is necessary to measure the small area with high density. In the case of only using aero photograph, it is difficult for the 
extraction building footprints as closed polygons. In the other side, there is the demand for rough foundation data of maps at a low 
price to create the maps. This paper proposes the methods of extraction the rough building footprints and the connection between 
vertices from the laser point clouds and correcting building's footprints by using the ortho image to create a rough foundation map at 
a low price. 
1. INTRODUCTION Using the methods, the building footprints are obtained as 
polygons, and we can use the data of building footprints 
Recently, the expectations are increasing for the precised 3D directory into the GIS systems. And then, we can create easily 
City Models according to the improvement of GIS and CG the 3d City map from the building footprints and the height 
technologies. Specially, the precision Digital Maps that are information of laser points. 
reflected the latest status of real world is indispensable for the 
Virtual Reality System. In the meantime, the building footprints 2. SPECIFICATION OF AIRBORNE LASER SCANNER 
are changed frequently as time goes on by the building 
reconstruction or re-planning of the streets in the real world. In 
order to keep freshness of the Digital Maps in a short time, we 
need to create the 3D City Models, and need to maintain and 
modify the data sets at the same time. In the case of 3D Digital 
Maps are provided as the base maps, the data sets are required 
to provide with uniform quality for wide area as well. 
So far, we have studied the filters for removing point clouds 
hitting objects on the ground and extracting the ground point 
clouds (DEM) from the surface point clouds (DSM) in the 
urban area. The surface point clouds means the all measurement 
surface of objects on the ground that include ground, buildings, 
trees and the others. The filters mean the method to classify the 
ground and the others. As a result, we can get the DEM. 
And then, the height of objects is obtained by the calculation 
that subtracts between DSM and DEM. The incipient object 
outlines as closed polygons are created to conduct the contour 
lines from the height of objects data. At first, the incipient 
object outlines are classified to the buildings and the trees. And 
then, we use the buildings cluster as the incipient buildings 
footprints. These outlines are more complicated than the actual 
building footprints, because the laser beams hit a building 
randomly. The evident building footprints are obtained by the 
adjustment from the incipient building footprints using the 
ortho image. 
The specifications of using equipment are shown in table 1-2. 
The laser scanner and the digital camera are loaded on an 
airplane, and the instruments are synchronized with each other 
to survey. 
  
Laser Type Near Infrared 
(Wavelength 0.7-1.3 um) 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Laser Standard Class4 Laser Product 
Flight Altitude 600 — 3000[m] (for ground) 
Scanning Width 300 — 2500[m] 
Scanning Angle S[deg](28Hz) - 45[deg](14.5Hz) 
(Scanning Frequency) 
Pulse Rate Max.15 [KHz] 
Return Number Max. 5 [Pulses] 
Measurement Interval Im — 8m 
(Cross Track) 
Measurement Interval Min. 2.5m 
(Along Track) (Due to Flight Speed) 
Accuracy Horizontal: +30cm 
Vertical: 15cm (RMSE) 
  
Table 1 Specification of Laser Scanner 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Image Size 4096 x 4096 [pixels] 
Shutter Interval Min. 2.5 [sec] 
Focus Length 50 or 90 [mm] 
View Angle 45[deg] fixed (F=50mm) 
30[deg] fixed (F=90mm) 
Ground Resolution 15cm (Max) 
  
  
Table 2 Specification of Digital Camera 
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