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CASE STUDY

Corridor Mapping With Direct Georeferencing and Correlator3D


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rely on the research of the JALBTCX team to support their coastal mapping and charting needs. From Hawaii to Florida, shorelines are constantly changing due to environmental factors. These coastal corridors are consistently being mapped using both lidar and imagery collected. Mapping at this scale creates little time for field survey, so direct georeferencing is used to support the positioning of the imagery. Using the new image positioning information and the lidar surface captured in tandem, JALBTCX can meet their desired accuracy when processing in Correlator3D.

Corridor Mapping With Direct Georeferencing and Correlator3D
INDUSTRY

Surveying


COUNTRY

United States


USE CASE

Leveraging direct georeferencing and lidar to speed up processing


CHALLENGES
  • Planning for large corridor collection
  • Extracting positioning information
  • Creating checkpoints from lidar
  • Ensuring consistency across multiple data processors

 

BENEFITS
  • Rapid acquisition
  • Highly accurate positioning information
  • DEMs created from lidar
  • Colorized point clouds for accuracy validation
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Joseph Heath harwood

“The size of our projects and accuracy requirements allow us to use direct georeferencing for the basis of our mapping”, said J. Heath Harwood, Physical Scientist, US Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District. “Additionally, we have the benefit of capturing lidar data at the same time which can be used to speed up processing and validate the imagery products.”

J. HEATH HARWOOD

PHYSICAL SCIENTIST, US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

Corridor Mapping With Direct Georeferencing and Correlator3D

WORKFLOW


Heath’s team will spend the entire day capturing both lidar and imagery. They break the days flying into smaller corridor segments, with multiple parallel flight lines to support the aerial triangulation and DSM generation if needed. Often, no survey control is set prior to acquisition as the team will rely on the positioning system used to support direct georeferencing. At project is set up, the images, exterior orientation data, and camera information are imported, and a bundle adjustment is performed using direct georeferencing method.

The lidar data collected are imported as a new DSM, and the point cloud is colorized for future use. In addition, intensity images are created, which can then be used to extract checkpoints in conjunction with the DSM. This step also bypasses the creation of a DSM from imagery, saving the team some time as well. Once the DSM has been accepted, the orthomosaic process can be completed.

DELIVERABLES

Typical deliverables consist of a high-resolution digital terrain model (DTM), a digital surface model (DSM) and an orthomosaic.

 

BENEFITS

According to Heath, the benefits of using Correlator3D are that it just works well and requires little training, which is very valuable when working with teams of contractors to ensure a consistent deliverable. On top of that is the ability to work with the imagery in its compressed IIQ format, which saves his team a lot of time.

 

ABOUT JALBTCX

The mission of the Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise (JALBTCX) is to perform operation, research, and development in airborne lidar bathymetry and complementary technologies to support coastal mapping and charting requirements of the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the US Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the US Geologic Survey (USGS). For more information, visit www.sam.usace.army.mil/Missions/Spatial-Data-Branch/JALBTCX/.

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