Image Processing

Space Imaging Middle East (SIME), a Dubai-based imagery and GIS company founded in 1997, runs an in-house Production Department that turns raw satellite and aerial imagery into imagery and geospatial data that can be used directly in mapping and GIS work.

Standard processing covers geo-referencing (using references from several sources), image-to-image registration, orthorectification that removes terrain and collection-angle distortion, and seamless countrywide mosaics built through scene-to-scene rectification and radiometric balancing. SIME places imagery in whatever projection a client works in and builds custom projection systems on request; it has produced ERDAS projection libraries for the Kuwait Utility projection, the Qatar National Grid and the Lebanon Stereographic projection. Large datasets are cut into numbered tiles in TIFF, JPG, MrSID or other client-specified formats, supplied with a tile index.

Specialised processing includes natural-colour generation from near-infrared, red and green false-colour composites, pan-sharpening (image fusion) that raises spatial resolution while keeping spectral detail, and haze reduction that removes haze, atmospheric and solar-illumination effects. For aerial imagery SIME also produces true orthos that show areas otherwise hidden by building lean.

Derived products include digital elevation and terrain models with hard and soft break lines, ridgelines and spot heights, and 3D/2D planimetry vector datasets that are overlaid on ortho imagery to produce city-wide and country-wide maps in digital or printed form. In 2013 SIME bought SimActive's Correlator3D software, mainly for satellite image processing, to generate large DEMs and orthomosaics covering more than 150,000 square kilometres.