ABSTRACT:Automatic building modelling allows a cost effective access to 3D semantic information of cities. However, even state-of-the-art algorithms have intrinsic limits and many errors exist in 3D reconstructions, requiring expensive manual corrections. A new approach is proposed in this paper for the automatic diagnosis of 3D building databases in urban areas. A novel error taxonomy which allows a subsequent high-level diagnosis is first proposed. Then, relevant raster and vector features are extracted from very high resolution multi-view images and Digital Surface Models so as that to retrieve such errors. In a supervised way, a set of functions is presented in order to take high-level decisions from these low-level features. Experiments on 355 buildings in an European dense city center with 10 cm airborne images demonstrate the high accuracy on error detection and show promising results.

Abstract. The full-waveform lidar technology allows a complete access to the information related to the emitted and backscattered laser signals. Although most of the common applications of full-waveform lidar are currently dedicated to the study of forested areas, some recent studies have shown that airborne full-waveform data is relevant for urban area analysis. We extend the field to pattern recognition with a focus on retrieval. Our proposed approach combines two steps. In a first time, building edges are coarsely extracted. Then, a physical model based on the lidar equation is used to retrieve a more accurate position of the estimated edge than the size of the lidar footprint. Another consequence is the estimation of more accurate planimetric positions of the extracted echoes.