The rapid method for road extraction from high-resolution satellite images based on USM algorithm

With the rapid development of 3D-GIS and image extraction technology, the automatic updates of GIS information have become possible. The road information is an important part of the GIS data, and the general road extraction algorithm had the problem of computational complexity and was time-consuming. In this paper, the improved Unsharp Mask (USM) sharpening algorithm is used to enhance the image, and to strengthen the road feature with the surrounding environment color gradient. A rapid method of road extraction from satellite images based on edge detection was achieved by the operations of image preprocessing, threshold segmentation, corrosion and expansion. The algorithm was achieved by matlab and applied to high-resolution satellite images. The experiment results proved that this method could effectively reduce the noise of non-target and achieve accurate road extraction from the general images.