Using an Integration of Fuzzy Logic Theory and Deep Learning to Detect Changes in Buildings

Nowadays, updating information collected from urban areas is of great importance, since it provides the basis for many fields of study such as land cover changes and environmental studies. Remote sensing provides an opportunity to obtain information from urban areas at different levels of accuracy while widely used in various change detection applications. Detecting changes in buildings as one of the most important features in urban areas is of particular importance. Powerful and expensive processing systems are the only way to process large volume of remote sensing and photogrammetry data generated by the ever increasing number of sources to which laymen do not have access. The present study has applied deep learning methods and high computational volume of data processing in free clouds to make this possible for the public.

Two case studies have been selected in the present study. The first includes DSM and Orthophoto images captured by drones from Mashhad in 2011 and 2016. DSM and Orthophoto images in the second case study has been collected by drones from Aqda in Yazd province in 2015 and 2018. In accordance with the type of data used and high computational volume used for processing, the present study has applied fuzzy clustering method to detect buildings with a high computational speed and deep learning method to detect their changes. Object-based method and fuzzy logic theory have been used in the first step to classify features and detect buildings. In the second step, deep learning method and DSM differentiation method were also used to detect changes in buildings and evaluate results obtained from deep learning method. In the first step, buildings were detected using descriptors extracted from terrestrial and non-terrestrial features, and related decisions were made using fuzzy logic. In the second step, DSM differentiation method has applied the masks extracted from buildings in both epochs on the related DSMs to find their difference and detects changes using an elevation threshold. In deep learning method, a convolutional neural network model was trained to detect changes in buildings during both epochs. Using the DSM of buildings in both epochs and a part of their interface, the network input layers were generated for training. Changes detected in the buildings by the differentiation method were also introduced as the output layer. Following the training and introducing the entire interface in both epochs as the input layer, the trained neural network has detect changes in the buildings. The same process was performed once more using the difference between two DSMs. In other words, a single input layer was used in the network and the rest of the process was the same as before. Finally, changes detected by the neural network was compared with changes detected in the DSM differentiation

In the first step, buildings were detected and images were classified in accordance with the fuzzy logic. The overall accuracy of the first epoch classification in Mashhad equaled 94.6% indicating higher acuracy of object-based methods as compared to pixel-based methods. The overall accuracy of first epoch in Aqda equaled 95.5%. Neural network method detected changes in buildings with an overall accuracy of 90%. In accordance with the ground truth used in network training (both using DSMs as the input layer and the difference between the epochs as the input layer), results indicated that deep learning method is highly accurate in one-dimensional convolution mode. Moreover, the second step has applied the difference between DSMs in the two epochs and thus, many areas lacking a change in height were removed in both epochs and the network was trained more appropriately and accurately.

Necessity of extracting features, especially urban features such as buildings and identifying their changes over time have been investigated in the present study. Due to the high computational volume of modern remote sensing and photogrammetry data and highly expensive systems required for their processing, a new method was presented in the present study to solve this problem. Considering the type of data used and the complexity of features, object-based methods were selected instead of pixel-based methods to identify features and buildings. Deep learning method was used to detect changes in buildings. The method was also compared with DSM differentiation method. A one-dimensional convolutional neural network was used in the deep learning method. Two different modes were used in the network to train and predict changes. In the first, DSMs extracted from the buildings in each epoch were used as the input layer, while in the second one, the difference between DSMs were introduced as a single input layer to the network and the network was trained in accordance with the ground truth collected from areas with and without change obtained from the DSM differentiation method. Following the training process, changes were predicted using the trained network. Much better results were obtained from the second mode in which the difference between DSMs were used.