TERRASIGNA (former ASRC) developed an Image Analysis and Processing Platform capable of managing, extracting information and valorising very large volumes of Earth Observation data.

The platform was designed within the project «Prototype for an interactive geoinformation retrieval system - GeoINF» ,financed under the National R&D Programme 2007-2013.

It processes satellite image data provided by optical instruments, such as: MERIS, NOOA, MODIS, SPOT, LANDSAT Ikonos, etc.

The platform capabilities include:

  • selection of the segmentation scale;
  • objects  extraction and object to text conversion;
  • elimination of unwanted details;
  • supervised classification;
  • class mask design;
  • semantic masks correction using statistic and Bayesian methods.

The main advantages for users are:

  • automated segmentation algorithms;
  • complex algorithms for decision making and classification;
  • machine learning mechanism by positive and negative examples;
  • short  processing time;
  • high quality results.

TERRASIGNA conducted a study case on Bucharest to highlight the urban growth process of the metropolitan area.

Several urban development maps of Bucharest area and its surroundings resulted. The respective maps were compiled into an animated application.

A set of satellite images in 5 chronologic stages was considered: September 30, 1984; July 9, 1989; September 1, 1994; August 8, 2002; August 18, 2009.

Urban area and wooded area were envisaged in this study case. The dynamics of the two classes is extremely different: the urban area has a very strong growing course during 1984-2009, while the wooded area is very stable, although altered by the vegetation change.

The animated application presents the evolution of the Bucharest urban area, with a strongly expanding tendency.

For more information, please contact us.

Urban Growth Application Using Satellite Imagery - Bucharest, Romania (animation)

LANDSAT TM and ETM+ scenes were used for creating the animation, credit to  U.S. Geological Survey