TY - JOUR

T1 - Contextual classification of lidar data and building object detection in urban areas

AU - Niemeyer, Joachim

AU - Rottensteiner, Franz

AU - Soergel, Uwe

PY - 2014/1

Y1 - 2014/1

N2 - In this work we address the task of the contextual classification of an airborne LiDAR point cloud. For that purpose, we integrate a Random Forest classifier into a Conditional Random Field (CRF) framework. It is a flexible approach for obtaining a reliable classification result even in complex urban scenes. In this way, we benefit from the consideration of context on the one hand and from the opportunity to use a large amount of features on the other hand. Considering the interactions in our experiments increases the overall accuracy by 2%, though a larger improvement becomes apparent in the completeness and correctness of some of the seven classes discerned in our experiments. We compare the Random Forest approach to linear models for the computation of unary and pairwise potentials of the CRF, and investigate the relevance of different features for the LiDAR points as well as for the interaction of neighbouring points. In a second step, building objects are detected based on the classified point cloud. For that purpose, the CRF probabilities for the classes are plugged into a Markov Random Field as unary potentials, in which the pairwise potentials are based on a Potts model. The 2D binary building object masks are extracted and evaluated by the benchmark ISPRS Test Project on Urban Classification and 3D Building Reconstruction. The evaluation shows that the main buildings (larger than 50m2) can be detected very reliably with a correctness larger than 96% and a completeness of 100%.

AB - In this work we address the task of the contextual classification of an airborne LiDAR point cloud. For that purpose, we integrate a Random Forest classifier into a Conditional Random Field (CRF) framework. It is a flexible approach for obtaining a reliable classification result even in complex urban scenes. In this way, we benefit from the consideration of context on the one hand and from the opportunity to use a large amount of features on the other hand. Considering the interactions in our experiments increases the overall accuracy by 2%, though a larger improvement becomes apparent in the completeness and correctness of some of the seven classes discerned in our experiments. We compare the Random Forest approach to linear models for the computation of unary and pairwise potentials of the CRF, and investigate the relevance of different features for the LiDAR points as well as for the interaction of neighbouring points. In a second step, building objects are detected based on the classified point cloud. For that purpose, the CRF probabilities for the classes are plugged into a Markov Random Field as unary potentials, in which the pairwise potentials are based on a Potts model. The 2D binary building object masks are extracted and evaluated by the benchmark ISPRS Test Project on Urban Classification and 3D Building Reconstruction. The evaluation shows that the main buildings (larger than 50m2) can be detected very reliably with a correctness larger than 96% and a completeness of 100%.

KW - Building

KW - Classification

KW - Contextual

KW - Detection

KW - LIDAR

KW - Point cloud

KW - Urban

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84889654522&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2013.11.001

DO - 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2013.11.001

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84889654522

VL - 87

SP - 152

EP - 165

JO - ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

JF - ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

SN - 0924-2716

ER -