Comparisons of Various DEM Interpolation Techniques

Extracting a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) from spaceborne imagery is important for cartographic applications of remote sensing data. The procedure for such DEM generation can be divided into stereo matching, sensor modelling and DEM interpolation. Among these, DEM interpolation contributes significantly to the completeness and accuracy of a DEM and, yet, this technique is often considered "trivial". However, na\ulcornere DEM interpolation may result in a less accurate and sometimes meaningless DEM. This paper reports the performance analysis of various DEM interpolation techniques. Using a manually derived DEM as reference, a number of sample points were created randomly. Different interpolation techniques were applied to the sample points to generate DEMs. The performance of interpolation was assessed by the accuracy of such DEMs. The results showed that kriging gave the best results at all times whereas nearest neighborhood interpolation provided a fast solution with moderate accuracy when sample points were large enough.