<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/nlm-dtd/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" article-type="research-article" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en">
<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2194-9034</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-1-W5-2025-61-2025</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Improving Image Alignment in vineyard environment with deep learning image matching</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lingua</surname>
<given-names>Andrea Maria</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Manca</surname>
<given-names>Stefania</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gallitto</surname>
<given-names>Francesca</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Chiabrando</surname>
<given-names>Filiberto</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4982-5236</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>DIATI, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>DAD, Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli 39, 10125, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>05</day>
<month>11</month>
<year>2025</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>XLVIII-1/W5-2025</volume>
<fpage>61</fpage>
<lpage>67</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2025 Andrea Maria Lingua et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2025</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-1-W5-2025/61/2025/isprs-archives-XLVIII-1-W5-2025-61-2025.html">This article is available from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-1-W5-2025/61/2025/isprs-archives-XLVIII-1-W5-2025-61-2025.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-1-W5-2025/61/2025/isprs-archives-XLVIII-1-W5-2025-61-2025.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-1-W5-2025/61/2025/isprs-archives-XLVIII-1-W5-2025-61-2025.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Globalisation has accelerated the spread of invasive agricultural pests, including &lt;em&gt;Popillia japonica&lt;/em&gt; Newman, introduced to Italy in 2014. This species has caused severe damage to vineyards, highlighting the need for efficient detection methods. Manual identification, though accurate, is time-consuming and labour-intensive. This study explores a computer vision (CV)-based approach using Near-Infrared (NIR) imagery captured by Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) to detect adult &lt;em&gt;Popillia&lt;/em&gt; specimens. Conducted in two vineyards in northern Italy, the project aims to develop a standardised and replicable monitoring protocol. CV-based detections are validated by entomologists and integrated into a Geographic Information System (GIS) to generate prescription maps for targeted drone-based pesticide application.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;However, traditional feature extraction and matching (FEM) algorithms, such as SIFT, SURF, and ORB, struggle in vineyard environments due to repetitive structures (seriality of fixed components, such as poles, supports, etc) and limited NIR texture. These limitations hinder image alignment, especially in the absence of geodetic-grade GNSS and high-precision IMU data. To address this, the study replaces FEM methods with deep image matching (DIM) techniques like SuperPoint and DISK for feature extraction, paired with SuperGlue for graph-based matching. Applied within a visual SLAM (vSLAM) framework, these deep learning models significantly improve image connectivity and alignment. Experimental results, supported by a fine-tuned SuperPoint model trained on vineyard datasets from the DANTE2 project, demonstrate up to 90% alignment improvement over conventional methods. This work presents a robust, scalable solution for accurate pest mapping in viticulture, contributing a fine-tuned PyTorch model to the scientific community.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="7"/></counts>
</article-meta>
</front>
<body/>
<back>
</back>
</article>