DDFormer: A Dual-Domain Transformer for Building Damage Detection Using High-Resolution SAR Imagery

Earthquakes are catastrophic in terms of damage to buildings. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has emerged as an effective tool to respond to seismic hazards. However, pre- and post-event high-resolution data are not always available for the affected areas, and the complex geometric properties of buildings pose a challenge to building damage detection. Therefore, this letter proposes the dual-domain transformer (DDFormer) semantic segmentation model for damaged buildings detection using a single post-earthquake high-resolution SAR image. The difference between intact and collapsed building features is enhanced by adaptive frequency and spatial modules. Taking the 2023 Turkey earthquake as an example, the experiments are conducted on two high-resolution co-polarized SAR data (Capella and GF-3). The DDFormer achieves optimal detection accuracy with mean intersection over union (mIoU) and F-Score of 81.81% and 90%, respectively. In addition, our results are in high consistent with the Turkey Earthquake Report published by Microsoft with a correlation coefficient of 0.626. The above experiments demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness of DDFormer.

Automated summary

This letter proposes a dual-domain transformer (DDFormer) semantic segmentation model for damaged buildings detection using a single post-earthquake high-resolution SAR image. The DDFormer achieves optimal detection accuracy with mean intersection over union (mIoU) and F-Score of 81.81% and 90%, respectively. In addition, the results are highly consistent with the Turkey Earthquake Report published by Microsoft with a correlation coefficient of 0.626, demonstrating the robustness and effectiveness of DDFormer.