Code 580 Technologies and Products

Automatic Extraction of Planetary Features

Principal Investigator (PI)

• Jacqueline Le Moigne/Code 580
• Jacqueline.LeMoigne@nasa.gov

Description and Objectives

• New unsupervised method for extraction of spatial features of elliptical and geometrically compact shape from a planetary surface.
  • Automatic processing of large amounts of data.
  • Applicable to low contrast and uneven illumination characterized image data.
  • Applicable to craters and rocks.
  • Can be generalized to other spatial features, e.g., boulders and ridges.

Experimental Results Obtained by Applying the Proposed Method to High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) Images (Top: Original; Bottom: Extracted object contours highlighted in red)

Technical Approach

• Combination of Image Processing Technique:
  • Canny edge detection
  • Watershed segmentation
  • Generalized Hough transform
• Can be combined:
  • With genetic algorithm or robust feature matching for image registration
  • With Markov marked point process for more general shape detection

Main Innovation(s)

• Unsupervised technique that does not need a priori knowledge of the terrain
• Robust to low contrast and uneven illumination
• Can locate spatial features of interest and provide shape and size descriptions of the extracted objects

Infusion Potential

• Applicable to image registration as well as more general analysis of any planetary imagery