A contrast equalization procedure for change detection algorithms: Applications to remotely sensed images of urban areas

We propose an algorithm that equalizes the contrast of grayscale image pairs to simplify the task of change detection. To ensure robustness of the detection under different illumination conditions, some authors recently proposed algorithms that compare the level lines of the images. We show - using ideas from the ldquoshape from shadingrdquo community - that under directed light, a necessary condition for the level lines to be illumination invariant is that the underlying surfaces be developable. The surfaces of cities can be modeled as piece-wise smooth developable surfaces, and it is therefore sensible to make use of the level lines for change detection. Our algorithm is robust and efficient both on synthetic OpenGL scenes and natural Quickbird images.