Assessment of dense image matchers for digital surface model generation using airborne and spaceborne images – an update
Yilong Han, Rongjun Qin, Xu Huang
Abstract
Abstract Digital surface model (DSM) generation is one of the fundamental issues in photogrammetry and the mapping industry. This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of state‐of‐the‐art image matchers using nine open‐source and commercial software packages on aerial and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images and five software packages on spaceborne images. Two datasets provide an update on DSM generation software for both airborne and spaceborne data: a 5 × 5 UAV image block with high‐precision models; and a WorldView‐1 stereopair with lidar reference data. To understand the performance of the image matchers, accuracy analysis is additionally performed on five selected ground objects. The tested image matchers adopting hierarchical semi‐global matching fitted the reference DSM better, thus yielding better accuracy.