An Effective Method for Bridge Detection from Satellite Imagery

In this paper, an integrated algorithm to detect bridge objects over rivers was introduced for satellite imagery interpretation. It is composed of two steps: first, segment the river from complex background using data driven strategy; second, detect the bridges in the shrink searching area using knowledge driven strategy. Considering the ubiety of the bridges and the surroundings, this paper focused on the water recognition based on feature extraction. By analogy with the lowest combinative energy according to the biological principle, we proposed brand new criteria which discussed the interrelationship of features. The assess method is adopted in the feature extraction of object image and the optimal combination of water body features is achieved. 50 real satellite images have been tested. Experiment results showed that the method improved the water recognition and therefore increased effectiveness of bridge detection. I.