Automating the Photogrammetric Bridging Based on MMS Image Sequence Processing

Abstract. The photogrammetric bridging or traverse is a special bundle block adjustment (BBA) for connecting a sequence of stereo-pairs and of determining the exterior orientation parameters (EOP). An object point must be imaged in more than one stereo-pair. In each stereo-pair the distance ratio between an object and its corresponding image point varies significantly. We propose to automate the photogrammetric bridging based on a fully automatic extraction of homologous points in stereo-pairs and on an arbitrary Cartesian datum to refer the EOP and tie points. The technique uses SIFT algorithm and the keypoint matching is given by similarity descriptors of each keypoint based on the smallest distance. All the matched points are used as tie points. The technique was applied initially to two pairs. The block formed by four images was treated by BBA. The process follows up to the end of the sequence and it is semiautomatic because each block is processed independently and the transition from one block to the next depends on the operator. Besides four image blocks (two pairs), we experimented other arrangements with block sizes of six, eight, and up to twenty images (respectively, three, four, five and up to ten bases). After the whole image pairs sequence had sequentially been adjusted in each experiment, a simultaneous BBA was run so to estimate the EOP set of each image. The results for classical ("normal case") pairs were analyzed based on standard statistics regularly applied to phototriangulation, and they show figures to validate the process.