Object-Based Image Analysis
Thomas Blaschke, Maggi Kelly, Helena Merschdorf · 2024
This chapter explains OBIA (Object Based Image Analysis) methods as used in the geospatial domain and elsewhere. We will start from the quest to partitioning geospatial data into meaningful image-objects, and the needs and possibilities to assessing their characteristics through spatial, spectral and temporal scale. At its most fundamental level, OBIA requires image segmentation, attribution, classification and the ability to query and link individual objects (aka segments) in space and time. We will elucidate the evolution of this approach, its relatively short history and its older origins. Instead of a comprehensive state-of-the-art analysis we refer to the key literature and try to summarize the core concepts for the reader in an understandable way, with a particular emphasis on a common nomenclature, definitions, and reporting procedures. Ultimately, we will ask where this development will lead to in terms of applications, research questions and needs in education, training and professional workforce development, and we conclude with the main advances and recommendations for future work.