User-Centric Evaluation of Semi-Automated Road Network Extraction

This paper describes an in-depth usability evaluation of our ROADMAP road network extraction system. Six operators used ROADMAP in both manual and semi-automated modes, as well as BAE Systems’ SOCET SET ® , to extract roads in four image test areas. An in-depth statistical analysis was performed on the timing results, with the main conclusion being that the performance differences among the three systems were not statistically significant. However, the evaluation highlighted a number of factors other than intrinsic feature extraction competence that affected the results and which point to the potential for significant engineering improvements.