Drone Photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is a scientific term for measuring real world distances from photos. It can also be described as a science of gathering physical information captured by drones in an aerial view.
It deals with 2D photos taken by drones. In drone photogrammetry, the process involves measuring the distances of objects in many photos.
Sometimes, the photos can be more than you may imagine. For instance, take the case where your parents are in a photo shoot.
When they take more pictures, the accuracy increases. In this case, you will have to tune in to every possible angle when searching for the best viewing angle to get the best shot.
Because drone photogrammetry deals with 2D photos, certain techniques must be applied to enable you to develop more advanced 3D photos. This paved the way for the introduction of Photogrammetry software.
The software combines overlapping images with similar features to generate photorealistic images in 3D. The software can also create 3D models and maps of topographical surfaces.
The transformation of 2D images produced by drones into 3D images is an increasingly useful practice for many industries. This process is always essential when analysing images and photos of places or topographical surfaces.
To transform 2D images into 3D images, you need the following ingredients:
An Optimal Height
When taking photos, the drone must fly up to an optimal altitude. This will enable it to achieve its best viewing angle and cover a reasonable ground sample distance.
Image Overlaps of About 80%
Your laptop or computer processing the image must have sufficient information to assist in stitching the photos together to form an orthophoto. An orthophoto is simply a two-dimensional aerial picture corrected for an effective distortion.
Angle Shifting
You will have to take the pictures from various angles, enabling you to create excellent digital terrain models. Using various angles also helps create a 3D look that perfectly matches the shape of the terrain surface.
Steady Flight
The drone will capture high-quality images when it is in a steady flight. You can achieve a steady flight by directing the drone o have a consistent flight.
After capturing the images, you can combine the digital terrain models and orthophotos to create the best 3D model of the areas or surfaces pictured.
How Does Drone Photogrammetry Work?
In its operation, the photogrammetry uses numerous views with similarities in the feature. It also involves using the distinct points visually identified in the picture to triangulate its coordinates in three dimensions x, y and z.
You can relate more images to each other when you match many images. This will also help you reconstruct many objects within the images.
The photogrammetry software calculates the location of each feature in a step-by-step manner until the entire worksite is covered.
Photogrammetry Concept in Real Life
When you have problems understanding what photogrammetry does in drones, you can comprehend more about it in real life.
This involves using your eyes, where the eyeballs create images for you to see using photogrammetry. In this case, the two eyes are cameras processing the surrounding images.
They are perfectly spaced to accept inputs at different angles. To test this, you can hold your figure right in front of your face and look at it closing one of your eyes.
Open one eye and close the other eye and have a look at the figure again. You will notice that there will be a slight displacement of the finger.
This is because the brain accurately processes the received information about the finger’s distance. The brain knows exactly the distance between your eyes and will use the geospatial data to merge the feeds into one perspective.
In other words, the brain also renders the 3D live map of the world based on the 2D inputs using a similar concept to photogrammetry.
Conclusion
Drone photogrammetry makes the new technology of drones more effective in image capture and processing. It also helps in the image conversion from two-dimensional to a more professional three-dimensional image by use of photogrammetry software, like the brain of a human being that accurately processes the images as captured by the eyes.
Drone photogrammetry has also proved to be more effective in image processing and conversion from 2D to 3D. This has dramatically impacted image production today.