This programme is part of Belgium’s participation in the French Earth Observation Programme “Pleiades”.
The “Pleiades” system is made up of two optical satellites with very high spatial resolution. The aim of the system is to cover European needs for very high resolution optical data for both civil and military activities, as well as for research and applications of a commercial or public service nature.
The “Pléiades” component is complementary to the Italian radar component operating in the X band, “COSMO-Skymed”. Together they form a dual system for Earth observation with metric resolution known as ORFEO (Optical and Radar Federated Earth Observation).
The ORFEO Support Programme has been set up to prepare for, support and promote the exploitation of the images from these sensors.
The ORFEO Support Programme has two sections:
1. The methodology section
The methodology section’s objective is to define and develop the tools needed for the operational exploitation of the future sub-metric optical and radar images. The subjects dealt with in this section will mainly concentrate on three-dimensional aspects, detection of changes, texture analysis, shape recognition, and the complementary nature of optical and radar images.
The 7 methodology focuses chosen are as follows:
- Problems linked to multi-scale issues and coupling with exogenous data
- Analysis of HR X band radar data
- From pixel to object: models and analysis of static or dynamic images
- From object to scene: models and analysis of static or dynamic images – indexing
- 3D models in an urban environment using optical images: modelling, representation and visualization
- Study of movements: deformation, displacements, evolution (subsidence, glaciers, etc.)
- HR radar imaging in urban areas: radargrammetry, interferometry and coupling with optical imaging
2. The thematic section
The thematic section covers a wide range of applications (civil and military) and aims to specify and validate value-added products and services needed by users. This section also includes reflection on how to integrate these products into current operational systems and on the intermediary structures that will need to be put in place to serve non “autonomous” users. This section is also involved in raising awareness amongst future users (mainly institutions), through some feasibility studies that demonstrate and validate various different, concrete cases.
Belgian scientific teams are involved in following thematic groups:
• Sea and Shore
• Risks and Humanitarian Aid
• Cartography and Land Management
• Forests
• Agriculture
OR/02/001: Synergy of very high resolution optical and radar data in forest mapping and inventory (SYNOPRA)
OR/02/002: Combination of satellite-derived raster and vector data for 3D City modeling (URMO3D)
OR/10/006: Detection and description of Geographic objects by mean of multi-source data assimilation (ASSIMIV)
OR/11/004: Change detection for updates of vector database through multi-level region based classification of VHR data (CHADE)
OR/12/005: Multimodal Georeferencing of 3D VHR Optical and X-band SAR Imagery (GEMITOR)
OR/12/007: Promotion of research in the area of 3D extraction and the use of satellite data along with other spatially-referenced data
OR/20/003: Automatic Extraction of Man Made Structures from VHR Optical and SAR data for Change Detection (EMSOR)
