Polish Cadastre Modernization with Remotely Extracted Buildings from High-Resolution Aerial Orthoimagery and Airborne LiDAR

Automatic building extraction from remote sensing data is a hot but challenging research topic for cadastre verification, modernization and updating. Deep learning algorithms are perceived as more promising in overcoming the difficulties of extracting semantic features from complex scenes and large differences in buildings’ appearance. This paper explores the modified fully convolutional network U-Shape Network (U-Net) for high resolution aerial orthoimagery segmentation and dense LiDAR data to extract building outlines automatically. The three-step end-to-end computational procedure allows for automated building extraction with an 89.5% overall accuracy and an 80.7% completeness, which made it very promising for cadastre modernization in Poland. The applied algorithms work well both in densely and poorly built-up areas, typical for peripheral areas of cities, where uncontrolled development had recently been observed. Discussing the possibilities and limitations, the authors also provide some important information that could help local authorities decide on the use of remote sensing data in land administration.