SAR2OPT: Image Alignment Between Multi-Modal Images Using Generative Adversarial Networks

Abstract

This work proposes an image-alignment method for multi-modal images (e.g., synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical satellite images) using an image-feature-based keypoint-matching algorithm. In applying the matching algorithm to multi-modal images, common features need to be obtained at the corresponding positions. However, the appearances of features among images are different. We solve this issue by translating the appearance of one modal image to the other using generative adversarial networks (GANs). In this work, we attempt to generate optical images from SAR images as a way to extract common features. Through an experiment, we confirm that the proposed method can estimate accurate correspondences between SAR and optical images.