Technologies and System for Automatic Generation of Advanced Geo-spatial Products with Chinese Satellite Imagery

As an advanced technology, satellite remote sensing has been applied in a variety of fields and has brought numerous social benefits. This paper introduces a new operational satellite imagery processing system and conducts a case study using it by processing ZY-02C and ZY-3 satellite imagery. By way of this case study, this paper proposes a workflow involving the key generation technologies with fully automatic generation of advanced remote sensing products, such as the digital elevation model (DEM), the digital orthophoto map (DOM), and the high-resolution color-fused image. The proposed workflow in this system tackles the key practical issues related to the domestic satellite imagery process, such as low processing efficiency, low utilization, poor integration, etc. This system utilizes the following key generation technologies: automatic registration between the satellite imagery and the existing multi-geographic data, strip aerial triangulation of three-line array satellite images, multi-sensor image registration and fusion, dense matching of photogrammetric point clouds, and automatic correct splicing of wide range images. The proposed process system consists of two parts. The first part is the creation of a geographic information production mode with no manual intervention. This mode aims to improve the accuracy and efficiency of mass domestic satellite images to produce highly precise orientation by using global public basic geographic information databases like Map World, Google Earth, etc. The second part is the design of a workflow to ensure the stability of the production time and quality of domestic satellite imagery's advance product generation. Finally, this paper also discusses the accuracy of the process of image orientation and the precision of advanced products such as high-resolution color-fused image (ZY-02C), DEM (ZY-3), and DOM (ZY-3). The results show that the products of the proposed process system meet the requirements in both efficiency and quality, and the proposed process system is ready for future real-time domestic remote satellite imagery generation.