1SPRS, Vol.34, Part 2W2, “Dynamic and Multi-Dimensional GIS", Bangkok, May 23-25, 2001 
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DIGITAL CLOSE RANGE PHOTOGRAMMETRY: A POTENTIAL TOOL FOR LAND FEATURE PRESENTATION 
Gang DENG 
Division of International Cooperation, Kunming University of Science and Technology 
121 Street, Kunming P.O. 650093, CHINA, Tel/Fax: +86-871-519-8622, Email: qdenq@oublic.km.yn.cn 
KEYWORDS: Digital close range photogrammetry, GIS, feature presentation 
ABSTRACT 
Digital close range photogrammetry (DCRP) provides one of the most generally welcome ways for land feature presentation for GIS 
software package. This is made possible with the successful development of DCRP in recent years. In addition to a simple image 
viewing for retrieval, a number of more functions could be expected by merging DCRP into GIS, including geometric measurement 
directly on photos and in 3D view, 3D model construction and virtual reality animation, etc. These are introduced with the applications of 
a successful and award winning DCRP software package PhotoModeler Pro as an example. Some related concerns are discussed. 
INTRODUCTION: User friendly is a general demanding for any 
GIS software package. For the vast variety of users, the intuitive 
presentation of a spatial entity with the form of the direct image 
as seen in real life would be most generally welcome and 
acceptable. It is therefore a natural choice for GIS software to 
take advantage of the digital images of spatial entities or land 
features as a helpful source to satisfy the corresponding retrieval, 
and conduct the other operations, necessary overlay analysis for 
instance. Image viewing has been incorporated into some GIS 
software, but it is a waste of the image data sources if the digital 
images are only employed for a viewing based on the retrieval 
query. Many other functions can be accomplished with the help 
of DCRP software by processing the digital images 
photogrammetrically in advance and incorporating the results of 
processing into GIS. From the pre-processed imagery, direct 
measurement could be made on the digital photograph, Ortho 
photo could be obtained for the selected plane of the object on 
the image, 3D model could be constructed and 3D measurement 
made directly on the model, engineering drawings of the 
architectural structure on the image could be derived, and even 
animation tour of the street could be accomplished with a virtual 
reality computer model. The above functions in different DCRP 
application cases were accomplished using a DCRP software 
package named PhotoModeler Pro (PM Pro) developed by the 
EOS Company, Canada (EOS, 1997). In this paper, these 
functions achieved by PM Pro are briefly introduced, and some 
related concerns are discussed. 
PhotoModeler Pro (PM Pro) is a 32-bit windows program that 
runs on Windows 95+ and NT4.0+. It support images lager than 
16 MB (EOS, 1997). Among its other features and for GIS 
applications, this package is characteristic in the multiple format 
input and output, including many commonly seen image formats 
as image input, ortho-photo output and 3D model output with or 
without photo-texture; 3D object space measuring on a digital 
photograph or in a 3D view. The latest version of PM Pro is 
version 4.0 released about half a year ago. The author was able 
to make a photogrammetric evaluation of the version 3.0j, with 
different non-metric images of two different objects (Deng, 2001). 
The conclusions of the evaluation are promising. The 
applications to the wooden house introduced below are from the 
test in the evaluation made by the author, while the other two 
application cases are from the current web site of PhotoModeler 
(http://www.Photomodeler.com). 
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS OF DCRP IN GIS: For merging 
DCRP into GIS to represent spatial entities, two types of general 
applications can be expected, namely the intuitive image viewing 
with the forms of the original image (no photogrammetry is 
necessarily needed at this stage), ortho-photo and/or 3D model 
with or without photo texture, and the extraction of the 
geometrical information from the digital image or the 3D model 
constructed by DCRP. By making use of the DCRP software 
package PM Pro, all these functions were illustrated in different 
projects of DCRP. They are unfortunately not all seen yet in GIS, 
the author however, believes and would like to recommend 
these functions be incorporated into GIS in the near future. 
1. Intuitive Viewing of the Photos: a. Viewing the original 
image: This is the most simple and direct way of utilizing digital 
image data in a GIS package, and no photogrammetry is 
necessarily needed for this function. As a typical raster 
presentation of spatial features, digital images can be directly 
introduced into any GIS as a specific layer for retrieval, and it is 
not uncommon in the current GIS packages. In the GIS package