Dr. Tomasz Stepinski
University of Cincinnati
Dr. Ricardo Vilalta
University of Houston
Martian landscape
Geomorphic map
shows landforms
chosen and
defined by a
domain expert.
Digital Elevation Map
Manually drawn geomorphic map of this landscape
Geomorphic Map
Represent the surface of Mars as a quantized rectangular
space composed of pixels.
Pij represent pixels.
Fi represents features.
 
 
 
 
Each pixel has 6 features
Clustering of pixels using EM.
The number of clusters is
calculated using cross-validation.
Landform categories are
identified with clusters.
Stepinski & Vilalta, “Digital Topography Models for Martian Surfaces”,
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 2(3), p260., 2005
Previous work # 1: results
•  12 resultant clusters
•  Each cluster given a posteriori meaning by domain expert.
•  After meaning is assigned 12 clusters are grouped into 4 superclusters based on meaning.
Pixel based
topographic
data
Segmentation
Object based
topographic data
(DEMs)
Geomorphic
Map(s)
Supervised
Learning
2631 segments
homogeneous in
slope, curvature
and flood.
Displayed on an elevation background.
A representative subset of
objects are labeled as one of the
following six classes:
◦  Plain
◦  Crater Floor
◦  Convex Crater Walls
◦  Concave Crater Walls
◦  Convex Ridges
◦  Concave Ridges
Labeled segments.
◦ 
◦ 
◦ 
◦ 
◦ 
◦ 
Plain
Crater Floor
Convex Crater Walls
Concave Crater Walls
Convex Ridges
Concave Ridges
◦ 
◦ 
◦ 
◦ 
◦ 
◦ 
Plain
Crater Floor
Convex Crater Walls
Concave Crater Walls
Convex Ridges
Concave Ridges