Automatic extraction of power lines by particle filtering from aerial images

Abstract

In this paper an approach based on particle filtering to automatic extract power lines from aerial images is presented. We integrate the similarity of grey value of power lines into particle filtering to track the points on power lines, and use those extracted points to fit the power line as a parabola. Moreover, a fully automatic initialization strategy is used. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is a promising and fully automatic method for extracting power lines from very complex background. This algorithm will play an important role in the exact 3D-reconstructions of power lines that can help the power grid company to ensure the safety of the power lines.