Performance evaluation of global and absolute DEMs generated from ASTER stereo imagery

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) digital stereo image could be used to generate Digital Elevation Model (DEM), which represents the terrain elevation in discrete three dimensional (3D) forms. In this research, the performance of the absolute and Global DEMs generated from ASTER stereo image is evaluated for the area of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). In doing so, 25 Ground Control Points (GCPs) collected by Global Positioning System (GPS) instrument are used to extract an absolute ASTER DEM. Furthermore, the ASTER Global DEM (GDEM) is acquired for the study area. The accuracy of the DEMs is assessed by comparing them with 20 high accuracy points which were collected using GPS technology. Some statistical parameters such as the Mean Error (ME), Standard Deviation (SD) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) are determined for this purpose. The achieved results indicated that the estimated vertical accuracy of the ASTER GDEM is less than 5 m at 80% confidence for the study area while the vertical accuracy of less than 15 m is obtained for the ASTER absolute DEM, which is less than the pixel size of ASTER image. Finally, according to the achieved results, 15 m resolution of ASTER image and the selected number of check points, it can be concluded that the accuracy of DEMs is acceptable for the study area, and could be used for various geoinformation applications.