4/3/2024

Module 7:
Photogrammetry

First aerial photograph

1858 Gasper Felix Tournachon "Nadar" takes

photograph of village of Petit Bicetre in France
from a balloon

1
 4/3/2024

Boston by Black and King (1860)

History of Aerial Photography

• US Civil War - Union General George
McClellen photographs confederate
troop positions in VA.
• 1882 - E.D. Archibald, British Meterologist
takes first kite photograph
• 1903 - Pigeon cameras
• 1906 - George Lawrence photographs San
Francisco after great earthquake and fire

2
 4/3/2024

World War One was a major

impetus to development of
aerial photography

After the war the technology was in place

to begin large scale aerial surveys

3
 4/3/2024

Aerial Photography in India ???

Aerial Photography

4
 4/3/2024

Introduction
• A “bird’s eye view” is very useful for map making
• Features obscure each other less when viewed from above than when
viewed from ground level

• Air photography can come from many sources

• Airplanes of all types can be equipped with cameras
• So can hot air balloons, helicopters, pigeons, etc.

• We’ll discuss primarily film cameras, but most of the same

concepts also apply to digital cameras

Basic Terminology
• Focal Length – the distance between the camera lens and the film
• Flying Height – the height of the plane (and therefore the camera) above
the ground
• Nadir – the point on the ground directly below the camera
• Flight Line – the path of the airplane over which a sequence of pictures is
taken
• Stereoscope - a device used to view/measure feature heights and/or
landscape elevations using pairs of air photographs
• Fiducial Marks – marks on photographs used to align adjacent photos for
stereoscopic analysis

5
 4/3/2024

Fiducial
Fiducial axes
marks

Principal
point
Marginal
information

Scale of • Scale (RF) = 1 : (flying

height / focal length)
Scale = f/H-h

Aerial H = flying height of aircraft

above sea level
• Focal length and flying
Photograph height should be in the same h = height of ground
above sea level
units

• Example:
• Focal length = 6 inches
• Flying height = 10,000 ft
• Scale = 0.5 / 10,000 =
1:20,000

• Ray, R.G. (1960) Aerial Photographs in Geologic Interpretation

and Mapping. Geological Survey Professional Paper 373.

6
 4/3/2024

Basic Camera
• Everything above “C” is inside the camera

• The film sits on the film plane

• f = focal length
• H = Elevation above ground
• ACB = angle of coverage
• Scale: RF = 1/(H / f)

[Link]
%20and%[Link]

Flight Lines
• Successive photos on a flight line
typically have ~60-65% overlap to
allow stereoscopic viewing

• Adjacent flight lines typically have

~20-30% overlap

• Some location of the ground may be

imaged on 3 photographs along the
same flight line and 6 photographs
in total

[Link]

7
 4/3/2024

Stereoscopic
vision
• Method of judging depth may be
classified as stereoscopic or
monoscopic.
• Persons with normal vision are
said to have binocular vision.
They can view with both eyes
simultaneously. These persons
are said to have stereoscopic
viewing
• The term monocular vision is
applied to viewing with one eye
only.

Depth perception
• Monoscopic viewing provides only rough depth impression which is
based on the following clues:
• Relative size of objects, Shadows, Differences in focussing of eye required
for viewing objects at varying distances.
• For stereoscopic depth perception usually two clues are involved
• Double image phenomenon and Relative convergence of optical axis of
two eyes.

8
 4/3/2024

Depth perception
• In binocular vision, there is convergence of
axes of eyes when focusing at point A and B.
• The corresponding angles are φ1 and φ2.
• Angle φ1 tells the mind that object A is distance
dA.
• These angle are called parallactic angles for
points.
• The nearer the object, the greater the
parallactic angle and vice versa.
• Difference ( φ1 - φ2 ) tells the mind that the
distance (depth) between two points is e = d B -
d A.

Depth perception

9
 4/3/2024

Depth perception
• As an example, the two photographs
overlap the same region, in which objects
A, B and C are situated at the same
altitude and object D at a different
altitude, the four objects will be observed
in a different sequence in the two
photographs a, b, d, c in the left
photograph and a, d, b, c in the right.
• In these photographs, segments ab and
bc are equal since they are at the same
altitude, but segments ad and dc are not
(source: Girard, 2003).

Stereoscope
• A stereoscope is used in conjunction with
two aerial photographs taken from two
different positions of the same area,
(known as a stereo-pair) to produce a 3-D
image.

• Different types of stereoscopes are

available for different purposes - from
pocket/lens (inexpensive) for viewing
small area to mirror (expensive) for
viewing larger area.

10
 4/3/2024

Parallax
• It is defined as the apparent shift
in the position of a body with
respect to a reference point
caused by a shift in the point of
observation
• In photogrammetry, it refers to the
relative difference in position of an
image point that appears in each
of the overlapping photo.

Absolute Parallax
• Absolute parallax (PX ) is given by (x l - x r ), where x l and x r are ‘x’
coordinates on left and right photographs respectively. It can be
noted that the value of parallax has been used with sign

Compute Parallax for points a and

b?

11
 4/3/2024

• The absolute parallax PA at point A is given as follows where B is air

base.
𝑓𝐵
𝑃 =
𝐻−ℎ
• Similarly for another point B, we can write

𝑓𝐵
𝑃 =
𝐻−ℎ
• Height differences between two points ( dhBA = hB - hA ) is given by:

(𝐻 − ℎ )𝑑𝑃
𝑑ℎ =
𝑃 + 𝑑𝑃
• dPBA = PB - PA is the difference in absolute parallaxes between two
points. Above equation can be modified to give

(𝐻 − ℎ )𝑑𝑝
𝑑ℎ =
𝑃 + 𝑑𝑝

• where dp BA = p B - p A is the difference in parallax bar readings

between two points. Thus, the above equation says that dPBA = dpBA
under the assumption that flying height for both photographs is
same (i.e. H1 = H2 = H) and photograph is truly vertical.

Stereometer parallax bar??

12
 4/3/2024

Numerical questions
[Link] ground points A and B appear on a pair of overlapping
photographs, which have been taken from a height of 3650 m
above MSL. The base lines as measured on the two
photographs are 89.5 and 90.5 mm respectively. The mean
parallax bar reading from A and B are 29.32 mm and 30.82 mm
respectively. If the elevation of A above MSL is 230.35 m,
compute the elevation B.
[Link] the above problem if the lengths of base lines are not known
and the absolute parallax of A is measured to be 89.80 mm,
compute the elevation of B. Also, find the height of another
point C whose parallax bar reading is 32.32 mm.

Hint: If the principal point are assumed to have same elevation as known point A, then the parallax of
principal point is the same as the parallax of point A i.e. P A = b m, the mean principal base

13