Description:
Abstract. This paper presents the first experience of georeferencing accuracy analysis of Pléiades 1A mono images. The Pléiades Constellation has been founded by CNES (The Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales – National Centre for Space Studies) consisting of Pléiades 1A&1B, following the previous five sisters of SPOT series. CNES also organized a Pléiades Users Group following a world-wide invitation. The images investigated in this research were received as one of the member of this Group. A stereo-pair was evaluated on Zonguldak test field where the topography is mountainous and undulating overlapping urban, rural and forest landscapes. As a first experience, totally 22 ground control points (GCPs) already existing were marked on the images, and the bias compensated Rational Function Model (RFM) was carried out reaching ±0.8 pixel at the GCPs. The overall georeferencing accuracy was performed by the figure condition analysis (FCA), a new concept successfully applied to IKONOS, OrbView-3 and QuickBird images of the same test field. The range of figure condition is between ±0.3–2.7 pixels. These results were compared with the other images of three sensors mentioned above. Although a special GCP survey by GNSS has not been performed yet, these first results are satisfied for the highly accurate georeferencing of the Pléiades 1A images.