AEROTRIANGULATION AND DEM/ORTHOPHOTO GENERATION FROM HIGH-RESOLUTION STILL-VIDEO IMAGERY

This paper presents two practical studies on the helicopter-based use of a high-resolution digital still-video camera for digital aerotriangulation and the automatic generation of digital elevation models and orthophotos. Test regions were an alpine village and a landslide area in Switzerland. The current performance and future developments of solid-state matrix sensors are shown, and the advantages and disadvantages of the use of digital cameras in aerial applications are discussed. Using self-calibration techniques, externally verified accuracies of 2 cm for planimetry coordinates and 5 to 6 cm for height coordinates were obtained in digital aerotriangulation using imagery of 1.20,000 scale, and a precision of 0.03 percent of the flying height above ground could be achieved for digital elevation models.