Using Photogrammetry to Generate

a DEM and Orthophoto

Prepared by: Keith Blonquist

For: CEE 6440
What is photogrammetry?
**Photogrammetry is the science of using images to obtain information about
physical objects
**Geometrical aspects of photogrammetry (recovery of 3D geometry)

What is photogrammetry used for?

**Photogrammetry is used extensively to collect data for GIS databases
**Photogrammetry involves aerial images, satellite images, etc…
**Most GIS databases contain data-sets that were collected using
photogrammetry

What does this presentation cover?

**Generation of a various DEMs and an orthophoto from aerial images
**This will be demonstrated with both a synthetic and actual data-set
Principles of photogrammetry

Perspective projection: from 3D to 2D

Collinearity equations: express 2D image r11  X  Xc   r12 Y  Yc   r13 Z  Zc 

x  xo  f
coordinates (x, y) as a function of the 3D r31  X  Xc   r32 Y  Yc   r33 Z  Zc 
coordinates (X, Y, Z) and camera r21  X  Xc   r22 Y  Yc   r23 Z  Zc 
y  yo  f
orientations r31  X  Xc   r32 Y  Yc   r33 Z  Zc 

Multiple images: a point must be

visible in 2 separate images in order
to find its 3D coordinate

Bundle Triangulation (based on collinearity equations) simultaneously solves for

camera orientations and (X, Y, Z) coordinates of target points from image
coordinates (x, y) of point correspondences
Synthetic Data-set

Synthetic terrain

Synthetic images

Point correspondences are corresponding points located in several images

Resulting 3D points
from Bundle
Triangulation (in an
arbitrary coordinate
system)

Using ground control points to orient model to known coordinate system

Ground Control points are points for which the (X, Y, Z) coordinates are known in
the desired coordinate system
Import 3D points and polygons to ArcGIS

Points interpolated to TIN (points on

tops of house were clipped out)
Triangulation done by Delaunay
triangulation—you can specify break
lines if you wish

TIN converted to raster

 Elevation Interpolations Kriging

Inverse Distance Weighting Splines

(points on tops of
houses were clipped
out)
Orthophoto vs. Actual Image
Orthophotos are a result of
parallel projection 
Actual images are a result of
perspective projection

Actual image vs.

Orthophoto
Actual Dataset

Images taken with a Wild RC30 aerial camera. Krawietz Aerial Photography, San Antonio, TX
Selection of Point Correspondences

***This collection of point correspondences is fairly sparse—so the resulting

DEMs will not be as accurate as possible. More accurate models result from
more dense point collection. In practice, automatic point correlation or use of
stereo plotters can be used to more densely collect points.
Resulting points
3D point cloud from Bundle Triangulation in arbitrary coordinate system

Orientation from ground control points

Coordinates of control points in

North American Datum 1983, Texas State Plane Coordinate System,
South Central Zone
North American Vertical Datum of 1988 in U.S. Survey Feet

ID X Y Z
1001 2148855.267 13750393.210 781.523
1002 2147642.219 13748882.528 760.457
1003 2149799.024 13749852.479 746.416
1004 2148318.001 13748247.835 731.077
Precision of Solution:
**Bundle Triangulation Algorithm gives error estimates of points in 3D space

**For these two images the 1-sigma error in 3D space was 0.43 ft (13 cm)

**This means that there is a 68% probability that the calculated points are within
0.43 ft (13 cm) of the actual points, and a 95% probability that the calculated
points are within 0.86 ft (26 cm) of the actual points

**A higher number of points can increase this precision (more accurate camera
positions are calculated)

**More accurate camera models can also provide higher precision (these
calculations did not involve corrections for lens distortion)

**RMSE for transform to Texas State Plane Coordinate System = 0.73 ft (22 cm)
Import point and polygon files to ArcGIS

One point file, one polyline

file (break lines) and one
polygon file (bridge)
Generation of TIN and Raster
 Splines

IDW Kriging
Summary:
**Photogrammetry can be used to generate accurate DEMs and Orthophotos

**Accuracy and detail of models is highly dependent upon the number of point
correspondences that are chosen

**Some features (houses, bridges) can be problematic

Work still to be completed:

**Still need to generate an orthophoto from the actual images
Questions?