Research on 3D modelling of the grove mountains in Antarctica based on multisource stereo satellite imagery

The Grove Mountains are located in the hinterland of the Princess Elizabeth Land of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. 3D modelling of the Grove Mountains is highly important for Chinese scientific research in the Antarctic. Through this research, a 3D model of the entire 3200 km2 Grove Mountains area and elaborate 3D models of the 64 nunataks were established. A 3D modelling method for the Grove Mountains based on multisource high-resolution stereo satellite images is proposed. This method includes four main steps: specific strategies for snow-covered and blue ice textures, a heterogeneous image fusion process, multi-image combined adjustment and patch-based multiview stereo (PMVS). The results of the experiments reveal that the bias, mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) were the smallest for the proposed DEM and the (Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica) REMA. These findings indicates that the proposed DEM is most similar to the REMA. The proposed DEM and the REMA had the strongest correlation. The correlation coefficient r was 0.99906. The absolute accuracy of the proposed DEM was verified by using the actual measured GPS points. The minimum elevation error was −0.4972 m, which occurred in the North Gale Escarpment.