Mapping built environments from UAV imagery: a tutorial on mixed methods of deep learning and GIS

Abstract Evidence has suggested that built environments are significantly associated with residents’ health and the conditions of built environments vary between neighborhoods. Recently, there have been remarkable technological advancements in using deep learning to detect built environments on fine spatial scale remotely sensed images. However, integrating the extracted built environment information by deep learning with geographic information systems (GIS) is still rare in existing literature. This method paper presents how we harnessed deep leaning techniques to extract built environments and then further utilized the extracted information as input data for analysis and visualization in a GIS environment. Informative guidelines on data collection with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), greenspace extraction using a deep learning model (specifically U-Net for image segmentation), and mapping spatial distributions of greenspace and sidewalks in a GIS environment are offered. The novelty of this paper lies in the integration of deep learning into the GIS decision-making system to identify the spatial distribution of built environments at the neighborhood scale.