Aida: a System for the Knowledge Based Interpretation of Remote Sensing Data *

Because of the increasing amount of remotely sensed imagery there is a growing need for efficient data analysis techniques. Here to automate the image interpretation a knowledge based approach is suggested. The presented scene interpretation system AIDA uses semantic nets for the explicit representation of the prior knowledge about objects expected in the scene. It exploits the knowledge base to generate a scene description assigning symbolic meanings to the image primitives. The information of a GIS database is used as partial interpretation to produce reliable hypotheses for the expected objects. This initial scene description is verified consecutively in the remote sensing imagery. Multiple sensors can be investigated simultaneously. The explicit knowledge representation eases the adaptation to different tasks. The system was tested successfully in applications like verification of GIS data, recognition of complex structures, the automatic search of tie points for the registration of remotely sensed images, and the object specific 3D modelling of landscapes and buildings.