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2.
AUTOMATION OF INTERIOR, RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE ORIENTATION
Christian Heipke
Chair for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Technical University Munich
Federal Republic of Germany
chris 9 photo.verm.tu-muenchen.de
Commission III, Working Group III/2 - Invited Paper
KEY WORDS: Orientation, automation, digital photogrammetry, review
ABSTRACT
Considerable progress has been achieved in the automation of image orientation for photogrammetry and remote
sensing over the last few years. Today, autonomous software modules for interior and relative orientation are
commercially available in digital photogrammetric workstations (DPWS), and so is automatic aerial triangulation. The
absolute orientation has been successfully automated for a number of applications. In this paper recent developments
and the state of the art in automatic image orientation are presented.
KURZFASSUNG
In den letzten Jahren sind bei der Automatisierung der Bildorientierung innerhalb von Photogrammetrie und
Fernerkundung beachtliche Fortschritte erzielt worden. Heute existieren autonome, kommerzielle Softwaremodule
für die innere und die relative Orientierung als Teil digitaler photogrammetrischer Arbeitsstationen, dasselbe gilt für
die automatische Aerotriangulation. Die absolute Orientierung ist für eine Reihe von Spezialanwendungen ebenfalls
automatisiert worden. In diesem Beitrag werden neuere Entwicklungen sowie der Stand der Technik der automa-
tischen Bildorientierung dargestellt.
1 INTRODUCTION
Image orientation is a prerequisite for any task involving
the computation of three-dimensional coordinates such
as the generation of a digital terrain model (DTM), the
computation of orthophotos, and the acquisition of data
for geographic information systems (GIS). Image orien-
tation refers to the determination of parameters descri-
bing specific photogrammetric models for mapping geo-
metric primitives such as points, lines, and areas from one
coordinate system to another one. Thus, image orienta-
tion belongs to the class of coordinate transformation
problems. Coordinate systems relevant to photogramme-
try are the object, the model, the image, and the pixel or
stage coordinate system. Their definition can be found in
any textbook on photogrammetry and will not be repea-
ted here.
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B3. Vienna 1996
Due to its decisive importance image orientation has
always been a focus of attention in photogrammetry.
Digital photogrammetry holds the promise of completely
automating the process of image orientation using image
processing and image analysis techniques. At least from
the point of view of users without formal training in
photogrammetry, image orientation is regarded as rather
complicated and time consuming. Therefore, it is clear
that an automatic image orientation module will add to a
wider use of photogrammetry and remote sensing. If such
a module is available, image orientation can be conside-
red as a preprocessing step in the photogrammetric pro-
cessing chain, somewhat similar to the geometric and
radiometric calibration of the imaging sensor. It is inter-
esting to note in this context that in the computer vision
terminology 'image calibration' sometimes already inclu-
des image orientation.
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