Generation of 3D Terrain Surfaces from Satellite Images

Abstract

The reconstruction of three-dimensional (3D) models of terrain is important in many applications mainly for photorealistic visualizations of virtual natural environments, ranging from the representation of a landscape, to doing analysis and monitoring of coverage, or land use. In addition, could also is used for the management and planning of the territory. The 3D modeling of territories or land is very important since many applications requires of this element and getting a three-dimensional digital model of the surface of some land, which is could be reliable and accurate, and that allows to be viewed interactively certainly help many users. In this context, to date, there are few tools that facilitate this task, among them the most used are ArcGIS, Google® Maps and Google® Earth, however, for this purpose, these tools are available online and works entirely on its environment. The main objective of this work is to get digital terrain models to carry out simulations, visualization for monitoring and also the possibility of a photorealistic representation, thus, we could even think of representing the entire world in a virtual navigation environment, supporting simulations with representation of objects of different types, from small rocks, plants, bushes, streams, ponds, rivers, lakes, mountains and other attributes that we can find in real terrain. As preliminary results, this research work shows some techniques and tools that can be used for the reconstruction of land that are often necessary to use them in our own applications and combine them with other elements to achieve the main objective.