UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). First Greek results.

Yannis Yanniris
Surveying Engineer Technical University of Athens
MSc Photogrammetry University of New Brunswick Canada
Abstract
The recent method of UAV photogrammetry is tested in a real case in Greece with
PHOTOMOD photogrammetric suite. The method is very new to Greece and the results of
horizontal accuracy of 4cm (=1 pixel on the ground) and 10cm in height is very promising
for many applications. Some further processing with PHOTOMOD is also presented.
Introduction.
A new photogrammetric method has a wide spread recently. The method uses
photogrammetric procedure using digital photographs taken with ordinary digital cameras
from small UAVs and the use of photogrammetric software. This article describes the
method and the results of it.
UAV Capture of the photograph .
The capture of the photographs is done by helicopters (with one, three or more rotors), flying
wings or small unmanned airplanes. In the Greek market one can find such models. These
models are usually powered by electric motors, they have a duration of flight about 30
minutes and apart from the camera they carry an electronic auto pilot circuit, a small GNSS
receiver and inclinometers. The flight programming is done through an ordinary laptop. They
usually fly at 100m to 1000m high and the ground sampling distance (GDS) at these highs is
4cm to 35cm. In a half hour flight they can take from 500000 m2 to 4800000 m2 with 60%
overlap and sidelap with a spee of 10m/sec. These values are indicative and they vary for
other speed and overlap.
Photogrammetric Processing.
This is done by a photogrammetric software. Notice that photogrammetric processing of
small UAVs is very demanding because
1. The photographic camera is not a common camera with big distortions an usually
without stable calibration
2. the coordinate and the rotations of the photographs are very rough
3. big rotations are observed from ont take to the next (not only because of the wind)
4. many times the photographs are blurred.
In practice the procedure seems like a toy but it is not. It requires experience and good
knowledge of photogrammetry to get decent results.
Actual project
The procedure was tested in real world with the following parameters.
The region was a typical Greek village at an area of 200000 m2. The photographs were taken
with a Canon Ixus 220HS 12mpixel (4000x3000 pixels) camera, on a SwingletCam flying
wing from a 100m height. The nominal focal length of the camera is 4.3mm and the pixel
(GSD) was 4cm on ground.
From the mission 36 photographs were used.
For pre marked ground control points (GCPs), five A4 paper pages were used and their
coordinates were measured in the Greek geodetic network using RTK from the permanent
Hellenic Positioning System (HEPOS). We must admit that the size of the targets was big
for this GSD.
In picture 1 a part of a photograph is shown.

Picture 1 Part of a photograph with pixel size in ground (GSD) 4cm

Photogrammetric procedure
For the photogrammetric procedure PHOTOMOD was used. This software has particular
tools for UAV
for reading the projection centers data,
for automatic tie point measurements (relative orientation)
for automatic block adjustment,
for camera calibration
The procedure was as follows.
1. The photographs were read.
2. The camera data (focal length, pixel size etc) were introduced and automatic interior
orientation was performed
3. The projection center data (coordinates and rotations) were read and interpolated
automatically if missing. The software automatically oriented the photographs in 5
strips as shown in picture 2.

picture 2 The block of photographs oriented automatically by PHOTOMOD

4. The special routine of automatic UAV triangulation was run and a firs absolute
orientation was accomplished.
5. A precise automatic relative orientation was done with maximum permitted vertical
parallax of 0.5 pixel and of 1 pixel on triplets 1 in horizontal plane and 2 pixels in
height. Photomod computes all possible stereomodels. The accuracy of relative
orientation of stereopairs was of an order of 0.25 pixel RMS.

6.

The 5 GCPs were measured. The position of the GCPs is shown in picture 3

picture 3 The position of the ground control points

In PHOTOMOD all kinds of stereoscopic measurments are possible from simple automatic
correlation of points to a complete stereo comparator a shown in picture 4

picture 4 The stereo comparator of PHOTOMOD

Stereoscopic observation in PHOTOMOD is done either through a graphic video card with
Nvidia quadro fx chipset with special page flipping glasses on a 120Hz monitor or with
simple anaglyph (red -blue) glasses (even on a laptop).
7. A block adjustment was performed next. After the filtration of erroneous points, a
new block adjustment was done but this time with auto camera calibration activated.
8. With the new camera parameters a new interior orientation was done for all the
photographs and a new block adjustment was performed
9. After one repetition of the previous step the final adjustment was accomplished. the
accuracy of the final adjustment is shown in picture 5. The RMS, the absolute mean
and the maximum errors are shown.

picture 5 The accuracy of the block adjustment

From this picture it is obvious that the RMS error of the GCPs is about 1 pixel (0.04m)
horizontally, while the relative accuracy of tie points is much smaller.
Vertically as expected, accuracy declines and in this case was 0.10m i.e. 2.5 times the size of
the pixel
This accuracy is good for many tasks like surveying, cadastral mapping, ground volyme
measurements etc.
If the camera is calibrated the steps of auto calibration are not needed.
More processing
After the block aerotriangulation adjustment the photographs are ready for further processing
in PHOTOMOD like
1. Automatic or semiautomatic DTM capture with automatic filtration of buildings and
trees, capture of brake lines, Calculation and on the fly correction of , contour
lines computation and DEM computation.
2. Stereoscopic compilation.
3. Orthophoto production.
4. 3d city model construction (with facade pictures stretched)
Some photographs of the several processes are given below

Digital Terrain Model (DTM) after building and trees filtering

Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) calculation

Digital Elevation Model (DEM)

Orthophoto of the village

Stereo compilation of details

3d city model (with no facades since they were not available)