Abstract
Craters, one of the most significant features of the lunar surface, have been widely researched because they offer us the relative age of the surface unit as well as crucial geological information. Research on crater detection algorithms (CDAs) of the Moon and other planetary bodies has concentrated on detecting them from imagery data, but the computational cost of detecting large craters using images makes these CDAs impractical. This paper presents a new approach to crater detection that utilizes a digital elevation model instead of images; this enables fully automatic global detection of large craters. Craters were delineated by terrain attributes, and then thresholding maps of terrain attributes were used to transform topographic data into a binary image, finally craters were detected by using the Hough Transform from the binary image. By using the proposed algorithm, we produced a catalog of all craters ⩾10 km in diameter on the lunar surface and analyzed their distribution and population characteristics.
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Lei Luo received his Bachelor degree in geography from Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, China in 2010. He currently is a Master Candidate of Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. His research interests involve Lunar and Planetary morphology, processing and analysis of remote sensing image and remote sensing in archaeology. He uses remote sensing and modeling to study Lunar and Earth cratering and impact on environments in the present.
Xinyuan Wang graduated from Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China in 1986 and received his Ph.D. degree at Nanjing University, Nanjing, China in 2000. Now, he is a Research Fellow of Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Deputy Director of the Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. His current research is on digital environmental archaeology, morphological analysis of Lunar and Planetary surface, Quaternary environmental change and space technologies for natural and cultural heritage, and their associated information technology and decision support systems. Professor Wang is a member of Chinese National Committee of the International Society for Digital Earth (CNISDE) and is responsible for the Digital Heritage. He is Deputy Director of the International Centre on Space and Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST), under the Auspices of UNESCO, and a member of the Committee for Digital Great Wall Program.
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Luo, L., Mu, L., Wang, X. et al. Global detection of large lunar craters based on the CE-1 digital elevation model. Front. Earth Sci. 7, 456–464 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-013-0361-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-013-0361-3