Special Issue "Geo-Processing of Historical Aerial Images"

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the availability of digitized historical aerial images has increased as many national archives or mapping agencies have started large scanning and archiving processes. Such historical datasets are a unique and quite unexplored means to map territorial changes and chronicle land-cover information over the past 100 years, with very high spatial and temporal resolutions. From these image datasets, 3D information can also be retrieved since many surveys were performed under photogrammetric (stereo) conditions. Long-term/multitemporal environmental monitoring, change analyses, or historical object detection can be based on processing these very rich time series of images.

The Special Issue aims to raise awareness and understanding of the recent activities related to digitization (i.e., scanning), processing, and dissemination of historical aerial images (among others). The Special Issue stems from the successful 2nd EuroSDR workshop on the geoprocessing and archiving of historical aerial images which was held in Rome in December 2022.

The Special Issue is seeking high-quality papers reporting progress, best practices, reviews, guidelines, and innovative solutions related to such rich patrimony. In particular, the following topics should be addressed in the proposed submissions: 

• Best practices in scanning/digitization of historical aerial images;
• Georeferencing processes;
• Multitemporal analyses;
• Change detection;
• AI methods applied to historical images;
• National scale processes;
• Web access and sharing of digitized heritage contents.

Dr. Fabio Remondino
Dr. Gianluca Cantoro
Dr. Thomas Dewez
Dr. Elisa Mariarosaria Farella
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2300 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• historical aerial image
• photogrammetry
• digitization
• 3D
• orientation
• DSM/DEM
• AI
• multitemporal analyses
• change detection
• heritage