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Acta Agronomica Sinica ›› 2020, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (7): 1112-1119.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1006.2020.91066

• TILLAGE & CULTIVATION·PHYSIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A comparison of photogrammetric software packages for mosaicking unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images in agricultural application

CHEN Peng-Fei1,2,*(),XU Xin-Gang3   

  1. 1 State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environment Information System / Institute of Geographical Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
    2 Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing 210023, Jiangsu, China
    3 National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture, Beijing 100097, China
  • Received:2019-11-06 Accepted:2020-01-15 Online:2020-07-12 Published:2020-01-28
  • Contact: Peng-Fei CHEN E-mail:pengfeichen@igsnrr.ac.cn
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(41871344);National Key Research and Development Program of China(2017YFD02015);National Key Research and Development Program of China(2017YFD0201501-05)

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Abstract:

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing technology provides a new tool for precise agricultural management. High precision automatic stitching of UAV images is the basis for application of UAV remote sensing technology. At present, there exist researches to compare the performance of stitching software packages on their spatial precision, but few researches on the evaluation of their spectral precision, which is very important for quantitative remote sensing inversion. The objective of this study was to compare the influence of the two most popular UAVs orthomosaic-processing software packages, Pix4D and Photoscan, on the spectral information of original single image when stitching the image in agricultural application and to recommend the better one for users. For this purpose, multispectral sensor was carried on a UAV to acquire images over a winter wheat fertilization experiment. The acquired images were processed by Pix4D and Photoscan software packages to produce mosaicked image. In the meanwhile, single multispectral images were also produced using the method released by sensor manufacturer. Based on above data, randomly placed samples in the fertilization treatment, extracted spectral information of each point in the three types of images individually, and compared their reflectance value and image contrast. Although there were significant correlations in reflectance values between the mosaicked images proceed by Pix4D and Photoscan and the single image for each band, the reflectance value and its coefficients of variation from Photoscan mosaicked image were closer to the corresponding values of single image, compared with Pix4D mosaicked image. It means Photoscan retains more spectral information of the original image during stitching image. Considering the geometric accuracy results and software package prices from existing studies, Photoscan is suggested as the better package for users.

Key words: unmanned aerial vehicle, orthomosaic, Photoscan, Pix4D, agriculture

Fig. 1

UAV platform and an acquired image"

Fig. 2

Distribution map for sampling points"

Fig. 3

Flow chart for data analysis"

Fig. 4

False color images for Pix4D mosaicked image (a), Photoscan mosaicked image (b), some single images (c), and map of applied nitrogen in each zone (d)"

Fig. 5

Reflectance scatter plots of single image and mosaicked image in each band (a) Blue band; (b) Green band; (c) Red band; (d) Red edge band; (e) Near infrared band. Dashed line indicates 1:1 line."

Table 1

Paired t-test results of reflectance data among the Pix4D mosaicked image, the Photoscan mosaicked image, and the single image"

波段
Channel		 Pix4D 拼接影像vs.
Photoscan拼接影像
Pix4D mosaicked image vs. Photoscan mosaicked image		 Pix4D 拼接影像vs.单张影像
Pix4D mosaicked image vs. single image		 Photoscan拼接影像vs.单张影像
Photoscan mosaicked image vs. single image
蓝光波段Blue band < 0.001*** < 0.001*** 0.043*
绿光波段Green band < 0.001*** < 0.001*** 0.003**
红光波段Red band < 0.001*** < 0.001*** 0.425 ns
红边波段Red edge band < 0.001*** < 0.001*** < 0.001***
近红外波段Near infrared band < 0.001*** < 0.001*** < 0.001***

Table 2

Averaged coefficient of variation (CV) data for Pix4D, Photoscan, and the single image"

波段
Channel		 Pix4D拼接影像
Pix4D mosaicked image		 Photoscan拼接影像
Photoscan mosaicked image		 单张影像
Single image
蓝光波段 Blue band 0.1585 0.1587 0.1677
绿光波段 Green band 0.1287 0.1369 0.1404
红光波段 Red band 0.2042 0.2095 0.2105
红边波段 Red edge band 0.0853 0.0930 0.0982
近红外波段 Near infrared band 0.1073 0.1125 0.1173

Fig. 6

Reflectance coefficient of variation (CV) scatter plots of single image and mosaicked image in each band (a) Blue band; (b) Green band; (c) Red band; (d) Red edge band; (e) Near infrared band. Dashed line indicates 1:1 line."

Table 3

Paired t test results of reflectance coefficients of variation (CV) among the Pix4D mosaicked image, the Photoscan mosaicked image, and the single image"

波段
Channel		 Pix4D拼接影像vs.
Photoscan拼接影像
Pix4D mosaicked image vs. Photoscan mosaicked image		 Pix4D 拼接影像vs.
单张影像
Pix4D mosaicked image vs. single image		 Photoscan拼接影像vs.
单张影像
Photoscan mosaicked image vs.
single image
蓝光波段Blue band 0.823 ns 0.003** 0.003**
绿光波段Green band < 0.001*** < 0.001*** 0.009**
红光波段Red band < 0.001*** 0.046* 0.759 ns
红边波段Red edge band < 0.001*** < 0.001*** < 0.001***
近红外波段Near infrared band < 0.001*** < 0.001*** 0.047*
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