Status and further prospects of object extraction from image and laser data

The automated extraction of topographic objects has been on the research agenda in the Photogrammetry and Computer Vision communities for more than two decades. Considerable progress has been achieved, though up to now there are hardly any commercial products that have been accepted by the market. Recent developments in the field of sensor technology, along with advanced techniques for data processing, have increased the potential of automated object extraction. This paper gives an overview on the status and further projects of automated object extraction, focusing on buildings and roads and on the application of high-resolution optical data.