ASP 2.6.2

*** RELEASE 2.6.2, June 15, 2019 ***

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3247734

• New satellites

  • Added support for SkyBox, together with a detailed example,
    including how to jointly align and optimize cameras in respect
    to a reference DEM, while optionally refining the intrinsics.
    This approach may be helpful for other images obtained with frame
    cameras and uncertain positioning information.
  • Added support for CORONA KH-4B, KH-7, and KH-9 declassified images
    and their panoramic (optical bar) camera models, as well as using
    and optimizing camera models with RPC distortion. An example
    is in the documentation.

• New tools

  • Added parallel_bundle_adjust which computes image statistics and
    IP matching in a parallel manner similar to parallel_stereo.
  • Added the cam_gen tool to create a correctly oriented pinhole
    camera model given camera intrinsics, lon-lat coordinates of the
    corners (or some other pixels), and optionally a ground truth
    DEM. It can also parse SkySat's video/frame_index metafile to get
    this data. It can also take as input any camera supported by ASP
    via --input-camera and create a most-similar pinhole camera
    model with given intrinsics.
  • Added the coverage_fraction tool to provide a coverage estimate
    of the results of a stereo call.
  • Added the image_mosaic tool which merges together images based on
    interest point matches. Can be used to stitch together Corona
    scanned images.
  • Added a new tool, n_align, to jointly align n clouds
    (re-implemented from Matlab, works well for small clouds that are
    close to each other).

• stereo_rfne

  • Added the option to run a non-SGM subpixel option after
    running SGM/MGM.
  • Added the phase correlation subpixel option. This is a Fourier
    transform based method.

• pc_align

  • Added a new approach to finding an initial transform between
    clouds, when they are DEMs, that may be more robust to large
    scale or translation changes, or to noise. It is based on
    hillshading the DEMs and finding interest point matches among
    them, which are then used to find the transform. Can be invoked
    with --initial-transform-from-hillshading .
    Supported transforms are: 'similarity' (rotation + translation +
    scale), 'rigid' (rotation + translation) and 'translation'.
  • Added the expression of the Euler angles in the North-East-Down
    coordinate system around the center of gravity of the source
    cloud.
  • Bugfix: intersection of bounding boxes of the clouds takes
    into account the initial transform applied to the source points.
  • Added a new alignment algorithm, based on
    https://github.com/IntelVCL/FastGlobalRegistration
    It can be invoked with --alignment-method fgr. It can perform
    better than ICP when the clouds are close enough to each
    other but there is a large number of outliers, when it can
    function with very large --max-displacement. It does worse if the
    clouds need a big shift to align.

• bundle_adjust

  • Two passes of bundle adjustment (with outlier filtering after
  • first pass) is now the default.
  • The flag --skip-rough-homography is on by default as it usually
    gives more reliable results. Use --enable-rough-homography
    to turn this option back on (useful when the footprint on the
    ground and difference in perspective are large).
  • The flag --disable-tri-ip-filter is also the default as input
    cameras may not be reliable enough for this filter. Can be
    enabled back with --enable-tri-ip-filter.
  • Added the --intrinsics-limits option to manually specify
    intrinsic parameter limits.
  • Added the --num-random-passes option to allow repeat solving
    attempts with randomly distorted initial parameters.
  • Added option to automatically guess overlapping images from
    Worldview style XML camera files.
  • Removed the non-Ceres bundle adjustment options.
  • Added the option to share or not share selected intrinsic parameters
    between pinhole cameras when optimizing intrinsics.
  • Improvements in solving simultaneously for both intrinsics and
    extrinsics of n camera images if underlying ground truth
    terrain in the form of a DEM or LIDAR point cloud is
    present. After this bundle adjustment, pairwise stereo and DEM
    creation, the DEMs are well-aligned to the ground truth.
  • Added the flag --reference-terrain-weight which, when increased,
    helps align better camera images to a given reference terrain.
  • Added the option --heights-from-dem. It is very helpful in
    determining an unknown focal length and distortion parameters
    for pinhole cameras.
    It can be used together with ---heights-from-dem-weight.
  • Bug fix in outlier filtering for n images.
  • Updated Ceres version from 1.11 to 1.14. When optimizing with
    multiple threads, results now vary slightly from run to run.
    Results from single threaded runs are deterministic.
  • Added a new --parameter-tolerance option. Stop when the relative
    error in the variables being optimized is less than this.
  • Documented the ability to create a roughly positioned
    pinhole camera model from an image if its intrinsics and the
    longitude and latitude (and optionally height) of its corners
    (or some other pixels) are known.
  • When multiple passes happen with outliers removed, match files
    are not over-written, but a new clean copy of them gets saved.
  • Renamed --create-pinhole-cameras to --inline-adjustments, and
    distortion_params to other_intrinsics. This is needed since
    for the panoramic model there will be other intrinsic
    parameters as well.
  • Added the option --forced-triangulation-distance for when one
    really needs to triangulate with poor cameras. Can be used with
    --min-triangulation-angle 0.
  • Added the option --transform-cameras-using-gcp. If there
    are at least two images with each having at least 3 GCP
    (each GCP need not show in more than one image), use this
    to convert cameras from an abstract coordinate system to world
    coordinates.
  • Increased the default --num-ransac-iterations to 1000 from 100
    so that the solver tries harder to find a fit.
    Increased default --ip-inlier-factor from 1/15 to 0.2 to help
    with getting more interest points for steep terrain with the
    pinhole session.
  • Increased the default --ip-uniqueness-threshold from 0.7
    to 0.8 to allow for more interest points.
  • Option to filter interest points by elevation limit and lon-lat limit
    after each pass of bundle adjustment except the last.

• dem_mosaic

  • Added normalized median absolute deviation (NMAD) output option.
  • Added the option --force-projwin to create a mosaic filling
    precisely the desired box specified via --t_projwin.

• stereo_gui

  • Added the ability to manually reposition interest points.
  • Can now show non-synchronous .match files (that is, each IP
    need not be present in all images).
  • Added basic functionality for drawing/editing/merging polygons on
  • top of georeferenced images or DEMs. The polygons can be saved as
    shape files, and then used to cut out portions of images with GDAL.
  • Added the option --nodata-value. Pixels with value less than
    or equal to this are shown as transparent.
  • Added the ability to view .vwip files (specify one per image).
  • Can view (but not edit) GCP files, via --gcp-file (creating
    GCP is supported in a separate mode, per the doc).
  • The option --dem-file specifies a DEM to use when creating
    manually picked GCP and --gcp-file specifies the name of
    the GCP file to use upon saving such GCP.

• mapproject

  • Added the --nearest-neighbor option to use that interpolation
    method instead of bicubic. This is better for labeled images
    which should not be interpolated.

• convert_pinhole_model

  • Can create RPC distortion models of any degree, which can be
    further optimized in bundle_adjust. Old RPC distortion files are
    still supported throughout ASP, but not functionality which
    optimizes them. They can be approximately converted to new type
    RPC distortion files with this tool if optimization is desired.

• Misc

  • Compiled against USGS ISIS version 3.6.0.
  • Expanded the documentation explaining how to align cameras
    to a DEM manually (or initialize such cameras) by selecting
    matching points between the images and the DEM.
  • The stereo tools and bundle_adjust will now cache image
    statistics and interest points to files on disk.
  • In stereo and bundle_adjust, when images or cameras are newer
    than the match files, the latter get recomputed unless the tools
    are invoked with --force-reuse-match-files.
  • Added a fix to make stereo work with the ZY3 satellite.
  • For stereo and bundle_adjust, added the --no-datum option to
    find interest points without assuming a reliable datum exists,
    such as for irregularly shaped bodies. Added the related
    option --skip-rough-homography to not use the datum in
    rough homography computation. Added the option
    --ip-num-ransac-iterations for finer control of interest
    point matching. Added --ip-triangulation-max-error to control
    the triangulation error.
  • The cam2rpc tool accepts --t_srs and --semi-major-axis as
    alternatives to --datum and --dem-file.
  • Add option --theia-overrides to camera_solve to make it easier
    to customize its behavior via flags.
  • Added an explanation for how the pinhole model works.