Improving Urban Vegetation Classification by Including Height Information Derived from High-Spatial Resolution Stereo Imagery

Vegetation classes, especially grass and tree classes, are often confused in classification when conventional spectral pattern recognition techniques are used to classify urban areas. This paper reports on a study to improve the classification results by using an automated process of considering height information in separating urban vegetation classes, specifically tree and grass, using three-band, high-spatial resolution, digital aerial imagery. Height information was derived photogrammetrically from stereo pair imagery using cross correlation image matching to estimate differential parallax for vegetation pixels. A threshold value of differential parallax was used to assess whether the original class was correct. The average increase in overall accuracy for three test stereo pairs was $7.8\%$, and detailed examination showed that pixels reclassified as grass improved the overall accuracy more than pixels reclassified as tree. Visual examination and statistical accuracy assessment of four test areas showed improvement in vegetation classification with the increase in accuracy ranging from $3.7\%\;to\;18.1\%$. Vegetation classification can, in fact, be improved by adding height information to the classification procedure.