Reconstructing Lattices from Permanent Scatterers on Facades

Abstract

In man-made structures regularities and repetitions prevails. In particular in building facades lattices are common in which windows and other elements are repeated as well in vertical columns as in horizontal rows. In very-high-resolution space-borne radar images such lattices appear saliently. Even untrained arbitrary subjects see the structure instantaneously. However, automatic perceptual grouping is rarely attempted. This contribution applies a new lattice grouping method to such data. Utilization of knowledge about the particular mapping process of such radar data is distinguished from the use of Gestalt laws. The latter are universally applicable to all kinds of pictorial data. An example with so called permanent scatterers in the city of Berlin shows what can be achieved with automatic perceptual grouping alone, and what can be gained using domain knowledge. Keywords- perceptual grouping, SAR, permanent scatterers, façade recognition