Once the distortion, "d", is known, the x and y components are
computed by:
dx = (rx/dist)*d and dy = (ry/dist)*d
where "rx" and "ry" are the x and y components of the radial distance and
"dist" is the radial distance.
Atmospheric refraction is also handled via an interpolation
table. Here the entries are generally handled as a scale factor required
to correct the vehicle-to-ground direction cosines. The scale factor is
expressed as a function of the cosine of the nadir angle.
The calibrated focal length values must be supplied.
THE TIME-DEPENDENT PARAMETERS
The following parameters are considered, in a general sense, to
be time-dependent:
1) Instantaneous vehicle position (generally in a Local
Tangent Coordinate System (LTCS)).
2) Instantaneous attitude components of roll, pitch, and yaw
at the optical center (note that this is essentially the
combination of vehicle attitude and scan angle for
panoramic systems).
3) Principal point offsets.
4) Sine and cosine of slit- or film-skew angles.
The time-dependent parameters are collected into a "vehicle
table" for each frame of interest with a "row" in each table consisting of
the values of the parameters for a corresponding instant in time. Figure 3
illustrates this concept.
FILM COORDINATES AS A BASIS FOR TIME
Time in the numerical model is represented by the y-film
coordinate. The module which generates the vehicle tables must compute a
bracketing set of y-film values which encompasses the area of interest on
the imagery. This encompassing set is then subdivided into an appropriate
number of equal, discrete intervals at which the parameters are evaluated
using the actual sensor geometric model.
For the inverse problem (computing image coordinates from
ground coordinates), one is faced with a standard problem of dynamic
imagery. In order to know the taking geometry of the camera system, one
must know tíme, but time is only known after the image position is known,
which depends upon the taking geometry of the photograph. This type of
problem is typically solved by an iterative solution, and the same is true
in this case. We have an advantage, however, in that we have easy access
to some frame approximation. We could pick any time within the frame,
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