A general method of generating satellite epipolar images based on RPC model

This paper presents a general method to generate the linear push-broom cameras and SAR epipolar images, which is based on RPC model and image-space adjustment model for relative orientation. The epipolar curves are derived by endpoints growing and fitted with straight lines and hyperbolas. And the RPC model is used to replace the epipolar geometry model and the sensor model of original images. Ikonos along-track stereo, TerraSAR-X same side looking stereo and the mixture stereo of TerraSAR-X SLC image and SPOT 5 THX are tested to evaluate this method. The remaining vertical parallax of the Ikonos, TerraSAR-X and mixture stereos is 0.0040 pixels, 0.004 lpixel and 0.56 pixels, respectively.