BALLOON PHOTOGRAMMETRY FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE 
M. O. Altan *, T. M. Celikoyan“, G. Kemper" G. Toz* 
? ITU, Division of Photogrammetry, 80626 Maslak Istanbul, Turkey, (oaltan, mcelikoyan, tozg)@itu.edu.tr 
® GGS, Kammererstr. 14, 67346 Speyer, Germany, kemper@ggs-speyer.de 
SS 4: CIPA — Low-Cost Systems in Recording and Managing the Cultural Heritage 
KEY WORDS: Archaeology, Three-dimensional, Visualization, Camera, Calibration 
ABSTRACT: 
Documentation and measurements on historical buildings are mostly connected with close-range photogrammetry for high resolution 
in order to analyse the detailed structure of the objects. Classical flight campaigns are expensive, limited by the resolution or 
restricted. An alternative with immediate access to the data is the use of a helium-balloon based platform with digital camera. 
For a project in the southern part of Turkey has been developed a system with a He-Balloon, a digital camera, a control-monitor and 
a mechanic stabilization. As digital camera was chosen an Olympus Camedia 4040 with 4 Mega-Pixels, which has been calibrated. 
The Camera was fixed in a triangle frame on 2 axes, so that it had always nadir view. The triangle frame was fixed with 6 ropes 
below the balloon, and to the ground with 3 ropes, one carried a video and control wire. The video signal of the cameras view was 
sent to a monitor and the remote control of the camera was also solved by wires. 
Then a flight-campaign in August 2002 was made over an excavated historical theatre in the former city of Patara, the former major 
port of Lycia, located at the mouth of the Xanthos River. In the presentation we want to show you the technical solution and the 
results of this campaign. The accuracy of the aerial images was better than 4 cm in position and height, the digitising however 
complex, related to the objects structure. The 3D-Vector data built the base of a fine DTM. Orthophotos have been created in order 
to add information the digitised results. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
  
Helium 
Balloon / / 
[n photogrammetric application, image acquisition is one of the 
most expensive steps. Especially if aerial images must be taken, 
the expenses are always high because of the high-cost of 
aircraft campaign. In some cases, other solutions for aerial 
imagery such as kite, balloon and remote-controlled model 
helicopter or aircraft can be the optimum solution (Leloglu et 
all). These types of solutions can be used, if the area of interest 
is small and non-metric cameras are enough accurate for the 
job. 7 Y Flight Unit 
N — Control Ropes 
  
Camera Platform 
Camera x 
f RR 
In this study, a low-cost solution for low-altitude aerial 
photogrammetry is represented. The system is designed for : 
general purposes of low-altitude aerial photogrammetry. f E 
However with some additional parts, the consisting system can e Re 
be used for special purposes. / : Lr Shug ‘ 
; "Monitor _ : 
2. SYSTEM OVERVIEW Main Control Repe ; 
with video | 
. . ; . . . and shutter cable | 
The system contains two main units. As illustrated in Figure 1, : Ce 
these are; Figure 1. System overview 
- Flight Unit 2.1 Flight Unit 
- Ground Control Unit 
In the flight unit, there are three main parts. These are; 
= Helium Balloon 
= Camera Platform 
Camera 
Interne 
The bz 
As an 
danger 
which 
an upli 
careful 
also ne 
big bo 
with o1 
The Ce 
Speyer 
connec 
the we 
a nadi 
platfor 
values 
influen 
The tri 
balloor 
m len; 
remote 
  
Fig 
For im 
selecte 
resoluti 
to use « 
wide ai 
good qi 
aspect.