Accelerated multi-hillshade hierarchic clustering for automatic lineament extraction

Abstract The lineaments are linear features reflecting mountain ridges or discontinuities in the geological structure. Lineament extraction is not an easy problem. Recently, an automatic approach based on multi-hillshade hierarchic clustering (MHHC) has been developed; the approach is based on line extraction from a raster image. An essential part of this approach is spatial line segment clustering, a powerful but relatively slow tool. This paper presents a modification of MHHC, which solves the spatial line segment clustering as a facility location problem. The proposed modification is faster than MHHC while not changing the method’s core.