Data Fusion Contest

2012 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest:

MULTI-MODAL/MULTI-TEMPORAL FUSION

The Data Fusion Contest is organized by the Data Fusion Technical Committee (DFTC) of the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) of the International Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). The DFTC serves as a global, multi-disciplinary, network for geospatial data fusion, connecting people and resources. It aims at educating students and professionals, and at promoting best practices in data fusion applications.The Contest is open not only to IEEE members, but to everyone, with the aim of evaluating existing methodologies at the research or operational level to solve remote sensing problems using data from different sensors.

The 2012 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest is designed to investigate the potential of multi-modal/multi-temporal fusion of very high spatial resolution imagery. This year, participants will download three different sets of images (optical, SAR, and LIDAR) over the downtown of San Francisco and each participant will get to choose their own research topic to work with. Proposals should describe in detail the addressed problem, the method used, and the end result.

Participants will receive a collection of images provided by DigitalGlobe, AstriumServices, and USGS that includes very-high spatial resolution QuickBird, WorldView-2, TerraSAR-X, and LIDAR data. The optical and SAR data sets will be composed of a total of eight images from two acquisition times in 2007 and 2011 as shown in the table below:

Sensor Acquisition 1 Acquisition 2
QuickBird/WorldView-2 11 November 2007 9 October 2011
TerraSAR-X 5 December 2007
16 December 2007
27 December 2007		 2 October 2011
13 Ocotber 2011
24 Ocotber 2011
LIDAR June 2010

 

Contest Rules

How to Get the Data and Enter the Contest

The data can be downloaded here. Participants must read and accept the Contest Terms and Conditions, and the DigitalGlobe and Astrium Services/Infoterra GmbHEnd User License Agreementin order to download the data.

Participants are required to submit a manuscript to enter the Contest. The deadline for the submission is June 1st, 2012. The proposal must be formatted in accordance with the IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium template (available at http://www.igarss12.org/Papers/PaperKit.html). The document must be in English and should be four pages maximum, including figures and references, and submitted in PDF format. Make sure to include the following:

  • Title
  • Name
  • Affiliation
  • Email

Submit your proposal to dftc@ieee.org

Award Committee

Each paper will be automatically modified to hide names and affiliations of the authors to favor the neutrality and impartiality of all reviews. Papers are judged in terms of sound scientific reasoning, problem definition, methodology, validation, and presentation. Eight independent judges will evaluate the proposals:

  • Jocelyn Chanussot, Grenoble Institute of Technology, France
  • Curt Davis, University of Missouri, USA
  • Jenny Q. Du, Mississippi State University, USA
  • Paolo Gamba, University of Pavia, Italy
  • Karl Heidemann, USGS, USA
  • Oliver Lang, Astrium Services, Germany
  • Fabio Pacifici, DigitalGlobe, Inc., USA
  • Uwe Sörgel, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany

Results and Prizes

Final results will be announced at the 2012 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium in Munich, Germany, in July 2012. The winning teams will be awarded with an IEEE Certificate of Recognition during the Chapters and Technical Committees Luncheon.

Additionally, the Data Fusion Technical Committee is pleased to announce that the winning teams will receive monetary prize as follows:

  • First Place: $800
  • Second Place: $500
  • Third Place: $300

The Data Fusion Technical Committee will also cover the cost of the Chapters and Technical Committees Luncheon for the three winning teams.

Finally, as tradition, a manuscript summarizing the contest outcomes will be submitted to a GRSS Journal. To further enhance its impact in the community, the Data Fusion Technical Committee will support its open-access publication cost.

Funding will be provided by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and DigitalGlobe, Inc.

Discussion Forum

Questions, technical or otherwise, should be submitted to the IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Discussion Forum at http://www.linkedin.com/groups/IEEE-GRSS-Data-Fusion-Discussion-3678437