THE RATIONAL POLYNOMIAL COEFFICIENTS MODIFICATION USING DIGITAL ELEVATION MODELS

Abstract. The high-resolution satellite imageries (HRSI) are as primary dataset for different applications such as DEM generation, 3D city mapping, change detection, monitoring, and deformation detection. The geo-location information of HRSI are stored in metadata called Rational Polynomial Coefficients (RPCs). There are many methods to improve and modify the RPCs in order to have a precise mapping. In this paper, an automatic approach is presented for the RPC modification using global Digital Elevation Models. The main steps of this approach are: relative digital elevation model generation, shift parameters calculation, sparse point cloud generation and shift correction, and rational polynomial fitting. Using some ground control points, the accuracy of the proposed method is evaluated based on statistical descriptors in which the results show that the geo-location accuracy of HRSI can be improved without using Ground Control Points (GCPs).