GPS time

GPS time system (recording the absolute number of seconds since the start of the GPS epoch at midnight on January 6th 1980)

Sometimes GPS time is given with an offset (e.g. 1000000000), in this case the 0 value corresponds to 2011/09/14 at 01:46:25 UTC.

Note also that POSIX (Unix) time is given since Jan 1st, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC.

convert to date

835734.87 6250812.50 -3.04 20 0 57560982
835734.88 6250296.85 -8.16 30 0 46351553
835734.88 6250476.48 -6.97 30 0 57559145

example of gps dataset

The gps epoch is in the sixth field, and the values are offset by 1 billion. To convert to date one can use Python.

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.date.fromtimestamp(1315964785) #posix time of the GPS epoch including the 1 billion offset
datetime.date(2011, 9, 14)
>>> datetime.date.fromtimestamp(1315964782+57560982) # gps time of the dataset + the posix time
datetime.date(2013, 7, 11)

Crop RPC

Using MicMac tools :

example:

mm3d SateLib CropRPC Ori-RPC-d0/GB-Orientation-IMG_PHR1A_P_201902190719128_SEN_3788788101-001.TIF.xml Ori-RPC-d0/GB.* Cropped Org=[3000,4000] Sz=[10500,8500]

parameters:

  1. image to use for the definition of crop zone (Org and Sz correspond to this image)
  2. pattern of orientation files for images to be cropped
  3. name of folder to store cropped RPC
  4. Org : Origin of the box to crop
  5. Sz : Size of the box to crop

Using Proj transformation

PROJ is a generic coordinate transformation software that transforms geospatial coordinates from one coordinate reference system (CRS) to another. It is currently used in many GIS softwares, but can also be used through an API or by command-line tools.

Below some usefull command lines:

Simple conversion from a known coordinate system (CS) to another known CS :

here from UTM33N-WGS84 to WGS84

echo 357000 4676000 | cs2cs +init=epsg:32633 +to +init=epsg:4326

Should return

13d16'2.189"E 42d13'23.141"N 0.000

More documentation https://proj.org/usage/quickstart.html

to add some formatting to output, specify the format with “-f” as a printf format string. For example “-f %.8f” will return the coordinate in decimal degrees with 8 decimals

13.26727481 42.22309481 0.00000000

to input several coordinates at a time, either use a file and pipe with cat

cat coords_utm.txt | cs2cs +init=epsg:32633 +to +init=epsg:4326 -f %.8f Should return the list of converted coordinates
13.26727481 42.22309481 0.00000000
13.54977927 42.05589846 0.00000000

and to output into a file, redirect with > symbol

cat coords_utm.txt | cs2cs +init=epsg:32633 +to +init=epsg:4326 -f %.8f > coords_dd_wgs84.txt

to input manually several coordinates, use EOF or whatever specific characters you like :

cs2cs EPSG:4326 EPSG:32631 <<EOF
45N 2E
EOF

Coordinate system transformation : ITRF, ETRF, WGS84

Clear introduction about Global and local referential (Lantmateriet) : “Positions determined by the GNSS method Precise Point Positioning (PPP) are in the same reference frame as the orbits, i.e. usually a realization of ITRS, e.g. ITRFyy, IGSyy or WGS84, where “yy” represents the year of the realization. The coordinates change with time in the ITRS realizations, because of the plate tectonics. Hence,the determined coordinates are given in the epoch of the observations. For practical applications like mapping and referencing spatial data , a static system/frame, which does not change with time, is desired. For this purpose, ETRS89 has been developed for Europe. ETRS89 coincides with ITRS at epoch 1989.0.”

Another simple reading about dealing with ITRS, ETRS and WGS84 is at Confluence website.

Nota : the transformations made by GIS software from WGS84 to local referential are precise at 1 meter only. For centimeter accuracy, use a geodetic software taking into account the velocities of the ITRF referential relative to the local referential (e.g. ETRF for Europe).

There are many WGS84 realizations. The latest compares with ITRF08 and ITRF14, see table below:

YearRealization (Epoch)For all practical purposes equivalent to:
1987WGS 1984 (ORIG)NAD83 (1986)
1994WGS84 (G730)ITRF91/92
1997WGS84 (G873)ITRF94/96
2002WGS84 (G1150)ITRF00
2012WGS (G1674)ITRF08
2013WGS (G1762)Compares to ITFR08 within 1cm Root Mean Square (RMS) overall
Table of WGS84 compared to ITRF from https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog862/node/1804

For US, WGS84 (G1762) is equivalent at 1cm to ITRF14. For France also ITRF14 ~ ITRF08 at less than 1cm, the transformation is given here http://itrf.ensg.ign.fr/trans_para.php

For France, the official referential is RGF93, which in its latest version is defined as ETRF2000 (epoch 2009.0) ( https://geodesie.ign.fr/index.php?page=rgf93 ).

Position and velocities of the IGS stations in ITRF2014 at epoch 2010 is given at this adress http://itrf.ensg.eu/ITRF_solutions/2014/doc/ITRF2014_GNSS.SSC.txt

also at https://itrf.ign.fr/ITRF_solutions/2014/doc/ITRF2014_GNSS.SSC.txt

Tools to Convert between referentials

Reference online tool to convert between ITRF and ETRF : http://www.epncb.oma.be/_productsservices/coord_trans/index.php

Coordinate transformation software for France : Circé IGN

Coordinate transformation software : PROJ

Example : converting from ITRFxx (epoch XXXX) to RGF93

We have made a GNSS survey in May 2020 that we want to convert to France official referential in a projection. The GNSS referential will then be ITRF14 (epoch 2020.1), and the French referential will be RGF93 with the associated projection Lambert93. In order to do so, we need to make some referential transformation, and also some conversion between cartesian coordinates, geographic coordinates and projected coordinates.

To transform ITRF14 (epoch 2020.1) to RGF93, use this site and choose ETRF2000 (epoch 2009) as equivalent to RGF93 (see this post), for the velocities you must choose the one of the nearest IGS station (positions and velocities given at ITRF official site or there or Euref site). Then to transform cartesian to geographic coordinates, use Circé IGN software. And finally, use also Circé to convert to projected coordinate system.

More information

GNSS processing with open-source softwares

The main methods of GNSS processing are (1) the classical differential correction with a permanent base station, and (2) the Precise Point Positionning (PPP) method that does not require a base station and uses precises clock and ephemeris data.

The tools used can be softwares or web-services. Among software we can distinguish between commercial softwares (e.g. Trimble Business Center TBC), open-source softwares (e.g. RTKLib), and scientific softwares (Bernese, Gamit/Globk). We will introduce RTKLib and web-services.

RTKLib

RTKLib is the main open-source library and software to process GNSS data. It can do conversion, post-processing, navigation, plotting, and so on.

Note : Several versions of the software exist and they behave somewhat differently. I’ll try to describe them one by one but you’d better check carefully your results compared to another “official” reference in order to validate your process.

Versions of RTKLib :

  • Official software, with actual version 2.4.2. Does not work for me in post-processing as it is not possible to load base station Rinex data.
  • Emlid Fork here. Should be best for conversion of UBX (Emlid raw format) to Rinex. For what I can say, it worked for conversions, for post-processing of the base station, but it was not stable for post-processing of rover.
  • RTKLib_Explorer fork here. Located on the really rich blog about GNSS and RTKLib named RTKLibExplorer, this tool works well and is well documented. The setting of parameters for static processing and obtain a single position is hard (set ON for “Output Single for Sol outage” and set a value for Max Sol Std)

Complementary tools for dealing with POS files from RTKLib and CSV files from ReachView :

PPP web-services

Static GNSS correction with web-service

This processing is done with static GNSS correction using a network of permanent stations.

RGP IGN http://rgp.ign.fr/SERVICES/calcul_online.php , good for France, gives results in many coordinate systems including RGF93-Lambert93

GNSS complentary data and tools

GPS and Glonass ephemeris data, along with atmospheric data at https://kb.igs.org/hc/en-us/articles/115003935351

and also here (search more simple) https://webigs.ign.fr/gdc/fr/product/format#ephem

and also here (search simple too) https://cddis.nasa.gov/Data_and_Derived_Products/GNSS/orbit_products.html

IGS Antenna calibration file (does not contain Emlid Reach RS2) : igs14.atx

List of IGS stations : here

GPS Calendar to get the GPS week : here or at IGN site

Julian calendar to get GPS day : here or at IGN site

Offset between GPST (GPS Time) and UTC : here

More information

Filtering of DEMs

Several algorithms can be used to filter DEMs. Most simple and common are:

A less common but very recognized and efficient:

Examples of such filters on an noisy DEM :

original_dem
original_dem

Click on caption to enlarge. r : radius

Workflow for generating DEM from Lidar tiles

The original dataset comprises Lidar tiles with classified ground and with XYZ ASCII format of this type :

13.83535621 42.12214528 401.940 32 2
13.83534713 42.12213870 401.870 28 2
13.83533818 42.12213222 401.670 33 2
13.83532879 42.12211645 401.950 30 1
13.83533763 42.12212258 401.630 28 2
13.83534682 42.12212933 401.830 29 2
13.83535625 42.12213609 402.250 25 1

2 processing methods are proposes. The first is more straightforward, it uses bash only. The second uses ArcGIS.

Method 1 : with bash, GDAL, LAStools

All the input tiles are compressed in zip format.

1- zip extraction :

for i in *.zip; do unzip $i -d .; done

The output is  xyz files, with classification as last field. 1 for unclassified, 2 for ground (see example above)

delete zip files with :
rm *.zip

2-extract only ground points from xyz files

awk '{if ($5==2) print $0}' input > output

for batch processing, see script “script_xyz2xyzground.sh”

3-convert xyz format to las format

las2las -i input -o output

4-interpolation in grid with points2grid

for i in *.las; do BASE=`basename $i .las`;points2grid -i $i -o OUTPUT/$BASE -r 0.00000707 --input_format las --output_format arc --mean --resolution 0.00001 --fill; done

5- convert asc format to tif

for i in *.asc; do BASE=`basename $i .asc`;gdal_translate -a_srs EPSG:4326 $i ${BASE}.tif;done

6- merge all tif tiles

gdal_merge.py -o MOSAIC/Marche_lidar_full_mosaic_4326.tif -co COMPRESS=DEFLATE -co BIGTIFF=YES -co TILED=YES -a_nodata 0 *.tif

Optional step : fill holes

for i in *.tif; do BASE=`basename $i ..tif`;gdal_fillnodata.py $i ${BASE}_filled.tif -co compress=deflate -co bigtiff=yes -co tiled=yes;done

Method 2 : with ArcGIS

Toolbox of several small scripts for processing Lidar point cloud and generating DTMs

The original datasets are point clouds with ground already classified

Steps :

1 – extract only ground from the classified point cloud
This is done with awk. See description at this site https://sigeo.cerege.fr/?p=199

ex. of command for processing a file :
awk ‘{ if ( $5!=1 ) print $0 }’ input.xyz > output.xyz
to batch it in bash :
for i in *.xyz; do awk ‘{ if ( $5!=1 ) print $0 }’ input.xyz > output.xyz; done

2- Convert ASCII XYZ file to LAS
This is done with ArcGis using the txt2las tool of LAStools, but it can also be done with libLAS or PDAL
The script in the ArcGIS toolbox is used in a batch mode

3- Convert LAS files to LAS datasets
we created a small python script based on Arcpy that we use add to a Toolbox and use it in batch mode
see “convert_las2lasd.py”

4- Convert Las datasets to TIN
we created a small python script based on Arcpy that we use add to a Toolbox and use it in batch mode
see “convert_lasd2tin.py”

5- Convert Tin to raster
we created a small python script based on Arcpy that we use add to a Toolbox and use it in batch mode
see “convert_tin2raster.py”

The scripts of steps 2 to 5 are used from a ArcGIS Toolbox

Gros rasters et Compression

Lors de l’écriture d’un raster, surtout en THR (très haute résolution), il est important de compresser au maximum les images pour avoir des fichiers qui soient gérables. Il est important d’avoir en tête que certaines compression se font avec une perte de qualité, et d’autres sans perte. Si l’on veut simplement faire de la visualisation, on peut se permettre un peu de perte, par contre pour du traitement ou pour des données type MNT, on ne voudra aucune perte d’information.

Toutes ces histoires de compression sont bien expliquées sur ce blog http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2015/02/geotiff-compression-for-dummies.html

Tuilage

Possibilité de tuiler (daller) pour permettre de gérer des trop grosses images. C’est parfois indispensable, par exemple si l’on passe au dela de 20 à 30000 pixels de large pour une image.

On pourra consulter pour plus d’infos cette page https://sigeo.cerege.fr/?p=116

Le BigTIFF et les tuiles internes

le GeoTIFF permet la gestion de très grosses images avec un système de tuilage interne. Tout est donc stocké dans 1 fichier TIFF.

Pour les images >= 4Go, il faudra les écrire en BigTiff.

Parfois cela est réalisé automatiquement par l’application qui va écrire l’image. Si l’on utilise GDAL, il est préférable de le signifier explicitement avec l’option “-co BIGTIFF=YES”

pour forcer l’écriture des tuiles en interne, c’est avec l’option -co TILED=YES

exemple de commande avec ces 2 options: gdal_translate im_in.tif im_out.tif -co BIGTIFF=YES -co TILED=YES

Compression sans perte de qualité

par exemple pour un MNT ou de l’imagerie que l’on veut garder intacte, j’utilise la compression avec DEFLATE

ex . gdal_translate dem_in.tif dem_out.tif -co COMPRESS=DEFLATE

Compression avec perte de qualité

on peut utiliser la compression JPEG pour réduire efficacement la taille des images multi-canaux en 8 bits (ne fonctionne pas pour les images 16 ou 32 bits) :

gdal_translate \
-co COMPRESS=JPEG \
-co PHOTOMETRIC=YCBCR \
-co TILED=YES \
input.tif output.tif

Le stockage en JPEG est encore plus performant dans l’espace de couleurs YCBCR.

Pour des images en 16 ou 32 bits, on utilisera LZW ou PACKBITS pour la compression avec perte de qualité.

Compression des pyramides raster

Les pyramides permettent d’accélérer l’affichage en créant des aperçus selon les niveaux de zoomes choisis. Ici la perte de qualité n’est pas un problème car c’est simplement pour l’affichage, et la donnée originale n’est pas altérée.

Les pyramides peuvent être stockées dans un fichier séparé (format OVR), ce qui est en général préférable pour plus de clarté, ou en interne dans un GeoTiff.

exemple de pyramides pour de l’imagerie 8 bits :

gdaladdo \
--config COMPRESS_OVERVIEW JPEG \
--config PHOTOMETRIC_OVERVIEW YCBCR \
--config INTERLEAVE_OVERVIEW PIXEL \
-r average \
-ro \
im_input.tif \
2 4 8 16 32

pour un MNT (16 ou 32 bits en général), on fera plutôt avec du DEFLATE ou du LZW

gdaladdo -ro --config COMPRESS_OVERVIEW LZW dem_input.tif 2 4 8 16 32 64

Références

Compression pour dummies :  http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2015/02/geotiff-compression-for-dummies.html

Format GeoTifff : https://gdal.gloobe.org/gdal/formats/gtiff.html

Format Geotiff : https://www.gdal.org/frmt_gtiff.html

gdaladdo pyramides : https://www.gdal.org/gdaladdo.html

Traitement MicMac d’images satellites

Workflow complet pour traiter des images satellites (multi-) stéréoscopiques

avec MicMac pour le traitement de photogrammétrie, et GDAL et OTB pour les post-traitements

Génération d’images Fusionnées (Pan-Sharpen) ortho-rectifiées avec MicMac

Le process est le suivant, utilisable avec le script https://github.com/JulesFleury/JulesFleury/blob/master/Script_Decomposition_Band.sh

#0- réaliser la fusion du bundle d’origine avec otb_bundletoperfectsensor

#1-
split Pan-sharpen bands
avec otbcli_splitimage.....

#2-
copie et renommage des orientations initiales et ajustées de micmac dans le dossier Ori-XXX-adj (cf. script)

#3-
#relancer MicMac Malt pour générer les ortho sur les différents canaux, plusieurs options sont possibles

  • a- si Malt n’a pas encore tourné

#mm3d Malt Ortho "Pattern de toutes les images" "dossier_orientations" DirMEC="dossier de la MEC des panchromatiques" ImMNT="Pattern des panchromatiques" DoMEC=1 DoOrtho=1 ImOrtho="Pattern des différentes bandes multispectrales" DirOF="dossier des orthophotos" EZA=1 ZoomF=4 

#exemple : mm3d Malt Ortho IMG_PHR1A_P.*.TIF Ori-RPC-d0-adj/ DirMEC=MEC-Malt_forPMS_Zf8 ImMNT=IMG_PHR1A_P_202107250554.*.TIF DoMEC=1 DoOrtho=1 ImOrtho=IMG_PHR1A_PMS_202107250554.*.TIF DirOF=Ortho-MEC-Malt-PMS EZA=1 ZoomF=8

  • b- si Malt a déjà tourné sur les panchro

#mm3d Malt Ortho "Pattern de toutes les images" "dossier_orientations" DoMEC=0 DoOrtho=1 ImOrtho="Pattern des différentes bandes multispectrales" DirOF="dossier des orthophotos pour le multispectral"
#exemple : mm3d Malt Ortho "IMG.*.TIF" Ori-RPC-d0-adj DirMEC="MEC-Malt-Zf4" DoMEC=0 ImMNT="IMG.*(00[123]).TIF" ImOrtho="IMG.*_b.*.TIF" DirOF="Ortho_Fusion" DoOrtho=1 ZoomF=4 EZA=1

#4-
#Rassembler les différents canaux des images pan-sharpen
#otbcli_ConcatenateImages ....