Block Adjustment and Orthorectification for Multi-Orbit Satellite Images

The objective of this investigation is to establish a simple yet effective block adjustment procedure for the orthorectification of multi-orbit satellite images. The major works of the proposed scheme are: (1) adjustment of satellite‘s orbit accurately, (2) calculation of the error vectors for each tie point using digital terrain model and ray tracing technique, (3) refining the orbit using the Least Squares Filtering technique and (4) generation of the orthophotos. In the process of least squares filtering, we use the residual vectors on ground control points and tie points to collocate the orbit. In orthorectification, we use the indirect method to generate the orthoimage. Test areas cover northern Taiwan. Test images are from SPOT 5 satellite. Experimental results indicate that proposed method improves the relative accuracy significantly.