Using shadows in high-resolution imagery to determine building height

This article presents a method for determining building height using shadows in remotely sensed data. The approach classifies building shadows based on their relative within-scene characteristics and spatial context, rules for which are determined empirically against geolocated photographs of the study area. The formal heuristic is described. This method complements existing approaches for extracting building heights that require precise specification of the geometric characteristics of the remotely sensed data and/or large amounts of ancillary data. The approach is suitable for analyses which may only require approximate measures of building height such as those found in many other domains.