Method and apparatus for automatically extracting geospatial features from multispectral imagery suitable for fast and robust extraction of landmarks

A method for automatically extracting geospatial features from multi-spectral imagery suitable for fast and robust extraction of landmarks evolved from a single seed point, the method comprising acts of:

• receiving an image of an area of land;
• generating automatically likely seed points representing a part of a desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively growing a region about the seed point based on a level set technique, with the region representative of the desired geospatial feature, and wherein the growing of the region results in a grown region having edges and a boundary;
• appending a selected grown region to a network of grown geospatial features;
• automatically reseeding a point on the image, wherein said reseeding point represents a potentially disjointed region of the desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively performing the acts of growing a region about the seed point, appending, and reseeding, until either exhausting all likely candidates of potentially disjointed regions of the desired geospatial feature, or until reaching the boundaries of the image of an area of land;
• and
• outputting the grown network representative of the desired geospatial feature;
• whereby the outputs include the network of the grown geospatial feature, and any geometrical or spectral features extracted from the network of the grown geospatial feature.

A system for automatically extracting geospatial features from multi-spectral imagery suitable for fast and robust extraction of landmarks evolved from a single seed point, the system comprising:

• a computer system including a processor, a memory coupled with the processor, an input coupled with the processor for receiving an image of an area of land and a seed point representing a part of a desired geospatial feature of the area of land, the computer system further comprising means, residing in its processor and memory for:
• iteratively growing a region about the seed point based on a level set technique, with the region representative of the desired geospatial feature, and wherein the growing of the region results in a grown region having edges and a boundary;
• appending a selected grown region to a network of grown geospatial features;
• automatically reseeding a point on the image, wherein said reseeding point represents a potentially disjointed region of the desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively performing the means for growing a region about the seed point, the means for appending, and the means for reseeding, until either exhausting all likely candidates of potentially disjointed regions of the desired geospatial feature, or until reaching the boundaries of the image of an area of land;
• and
• outputting the network of grown geospatial features;
• whereby the outputs include the network of grown geospatial features, and any geometrical or spectral features extracted from the network of grown geospatial features.

A system for automatically extracting geospatial features from multi-spectral imagery suitable for fast and robust extraction of landmarks evolved from a single seed point, the system comprising means for:

• receiving an image of an area of land;
• generating automatically likely seed points representing a part of a desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively growing a region about the seed point based on a level set technique, with the region representative of the desired geospatial feature, and wherein the growing of the region results in a grown region having edges and a boundary;
• appending a selected grown region to a network of grown geospatial features;
• automatically reseeding a point on the image, wherein said reseeding point represents a potentially disjointed region of the desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively performing the means for growing a region about the seed point, appending, and reseeding, until either exhausting all likely candidates of potentially disjointed regions of the desired geospatial feature, or until reaching the boundaries of the image of an area of land;
• and
• outputting the grown network representative of the desired geospatial feature;
• whereby the outputs include the network of the grown geospatial feature, and any geometrical or spectral features extracted from the network of the grown geospatial feature.

A computer program product for automatically extracting geospatial features from multi-spectral imagery suitable for fast and robust extraction of landmarks evolved from a single seed point, the computer program product comprising means, stored on a computer readable medium for:

• receiving an image of an area of land;
• receiving a seed point, wherein said seed point represents a part of a desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively growing a region about the seed point based on a level set technique, with the region representative of the desired geospatial feature, and wherein the growing of the region results in a grown region having edges and a boundary;
• appending a selected grown region to a network of grown geospatial features;
• automatically reseeding a point on the image, wherein said reseeding point represents a potentially disjointed region of the desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively performing the means for growing a region about the seed point, the means for appending, and the means for reseeding, until either exhausting all likely candidates of potentially disjointed regions of the desired geospatial feature, or until reaching the boundaries of the image of an area of land;
• and
• outputting the network of grown geospatial features;
• whereby the outputs include the network of grown geospatial features, and any geometrical or spectral features extracted from the network of grown geospatial features.

A computer program product for automatically extracting geospatial features from multi-spectral imagery suitable for fast and robust extraction of landmarks evolved from a single seed point, the computer program product comprising means for:

• receiving an image of an area of land;
• generating automatically likely seed points representing a part of a desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively growing a region about the seed point based on a level set technique, with the region representative of the desired geospatial feature, and wherein the growing of the region results in a grown region having edges and a boundary;
• appending a selected grown region to a network of grown geospatial features;
• automatically reseeding a point on the image, wherein said reseeding point represents a potentially disjointed region of the desired geospatial feature of the area of land;
• iteratively performing the means for growing a region about the seed point, appending, and reseeding, until either exhausting all likely candidates of potentially disjointed regions of the desired geospatial feature, or until reaching the boundaries of the image of an area of land;
• and
• outputting the grown network representative of the desired geospatial feature;
• whereby the outputs include the network of the grown geospatial feature, and any geometrical or spectral features extracted from the network of the grown geospatial feature.