Spot 5 pour la detection d'urbanisation

An automatic system to estimate the urbanization changes on the Belgian territory, using SPOT5 images and the National Geographic Institute vectorial database is proposed. The images and the vectorial data are first co-registered. Then, the vectorial database is projected and dilated to produce a mask representing the old status of the database. On the other hand, a fusion of two classification processes on the images enables to extract the built-up area and the communication network, generating a mask representing the actual state of the urbanization in the zone. The first process uses simplified Gabor filters to extract structures and texture, while the second is based on the vegetation index and the knowledge about hydrography. The comparison between the two masks provides coarse information on the changes.