THE STUDY OF SPACE INTERSECTION MODEL BASED ON DIFFERENT-SOURCE 
HIGH RESOLUTION RS IMAGERY 
Weixi Wang a,b *, Qing Zhu a 
a State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, 
Hubei, China—measurer@163.com 
b School of Geomatics, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, Liaoning, China—zhuqing@lmars.whu.edu.cn 
Commission VI, WG VI/4 
KEYWORDS: Different-source imagery, High resolution, generalized stereopair, RFM, Space intersection, reliability 
ABSTRACT: 
According to the concept of “generalized stereopair”, this paper focuses on the different-source high resolution remotely sensed 
imagery covering the same regions, and investigates the space intersection mathematics models based on RFM. Considering the 
complexity of imagery orientation in generalized stereopairs, this paper expends the original space intersection model based on RFM, 
and proposed homologous new models. And then the accuracy of different space intersection models are analyzed and compared 
through experiments. The results prove the computing precision and feasibility of space intersection mathematics models 
based on generalized stereopairs. 
1. INTRODUCE 
Along with the development of satellite remote sensing (ab. as 
RS) technology, the high resolution RS imagery play a more 
and more important role in military, economy and government 
decision-making, etc. It becomes a hot researching point to 
realize targets 3D reconstruction using RS imagery. For 
example, in the military applications, it is a urgent need to 
obtain the medium and small scale terrain data and 3D model 
reconstruction of the whole world key military targets using the 
satellite RS imagery; In the development of city navigation 
system, it needs to complete the destination navigation and 
localization, the optimal route selection after the the 3D 
reconstruction of cities or regions; In the research of city 
emergency system, it urgently needs to construct the 3D 
reconstruction model, and provide the data support for 
government decision-making in the forecast of disaster scope, 
the disaster effect evaluation, and the crowd dispersal. 
In photogrammtry and RS, the 3D reconstruction is familiarly 
obtained by stereopairs, and we can get many types of RS images 
for now. However, we still suffer from the following two critical 
reasons, 
1. Many regions may have no stereopairs; 
2. Even have, but very expensive. 
Investigating the reasons, there are some factors to cause them: 
(l)Polity (information blockage to non-allies or regions); (2) 
Price (the prince of stereo RS imagery is usually more 
expensive than single image several times); (3)Data lacking 
(many special regions or targets usually have no stereopairs of 
same satellite); (4)Security (the high resolution stereopairs of 
some special regions are not provided). 
Fortunately, more and more imagery could cover the same area, 
which are of different satellite sensors or aerial cameras, these 
images therefore have different space resolutions, different 
colors and different period. 
Focusing on the above two problems, and according to the 
concept of “Generalized Stereopair”, this paper proposes a 
method to construct a generalized stereopairs taking the overlap 
high resolution images from different sensors or cameras as the 
left and right images, and establishes new rigorous space 
intersection models based on Rational Function Model (ab. as 
RFM), then searches for homologous image points, lines or 
patches in corresponding images, and brings these image 
coordinates into these new space intersection models, 
constructs generalized stereopairs, calculates the 3D 
coordinates of corresponding ground points and completes the 
3D reconstruction of targets at last. 
2. THE CONCEPT OF GENERALIZED STEREOPAIR 
In the traditional photogrammetry and RS, the concept of 
stereopair is: 
A pair of imagery obtained from different stations and has 
overlap sections 
Aiming at the complexity of different-source imagery, this 
paper proposed the concept of Generalized Stereopair: 
The stereo points, lines or spots established from any two 
single image having overlap sections. 
If the two single image have the same sensor, same imaging 
station, same conditions etc, the generalized stereopair will 
equal to the traditional stereopair. Therefore, they have the 
following differentiation and affiliation : 
Traditional Stereopair 
Generalized Stereopair 
Basic Cell 
whole image 
whole or part of image 
Select Condition 
singleness, same sources 
multeity, same or different sources