Accuracy Evaluation of Structure from Motion Thermal Mosaicing in the Center of Tokyo

. In the airborne and high-resolution measurement of Land Surface Temperature (LST) over large area, capturing and synthesizing of many images are necessary. In the conventional method, the process of georeferencing a large number of LST images is necessary to make one large image. Structure from Motion (SfM) technique was applied to automized the georeferencing process. We called it “SfM Thermal Mosaicing”. The objective of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of SfM thermal mosaicing in making an orthogonal LST image. By using airborne thermal images in the center of Tokyo, the LST image with the 2m resolution was created by using SfM thermal mosaicing. Its accuracy was then analyzed. The result showed that in the whole examined area, the mean error distance was 4.22m and in the small parts of the examined area, the mean the error distance was about 2m. Considering the image resolution, the error was minimal indicating good performance of the SfM thermal mosaicing. Another advantage of SfM thermal mosaicing is that it can make precise orthogonal LST image. With the progress of UAV and thermal cameras, the proposed method will be a powerful tool for the environmental researches on the LST.