ISPRS 2003 Impact Crater Detection on Optical Images and DEMs

Impact craters are crucial landmarks for geodetic control as well as being interesting geological research targets themselves. Several methods have been developed to automatically detect impact craters but none are as yet practical or have been sufficiently tested. We have developed an automatic impact crater detection algorithm for optical images. It is based on a focusing strategy using texture analysis and ellipse fitting on local edges. Currently, the technique works well for craters of medium size but fails for very large impact craters. There is also some confusion between local edges derived from the images and the crater rim due to of solar illumination condition. Therefore, the detection process for real applications has been developed using fusion techniques exploiting both DEMs and optical images. This new algorithm introduces crossover checking on multi-images and a verification stage using templates so that a correct crater numbering is possible according to their size. Examples are shown of its assessment.

Mimetype

application/pdf

Filename

Muller_isprs_mar03.pdf

Publisher

ISPRS

Author

Jan-Peter Muller

Originator

J. R. Kim, J-P. Muller

Group

Astrogeology

Added to Astropedia

14 May 2012

Modified

9 July 2013

General

Geospatial Data Presentation Form

Document

Keywords

Theme

Impact Crater, Craters

Geospatial Information

Quad Name