EXTERIOR ORIENTATION ESTIMATION OF OBLIQUE AERIAL IMAGERY USING VANISHING POINTS

Abstract. In this paper, a methodology for the calculation of rough exterior orientation (EO) parameters of multiple large-scale overlapping oblique aerial images, in the case that GPS/INS information is not available (e.g., for old datasets), is presented. It consists of five main steps; (a) the determination of the overlapping image pairs and the single image in which four ground control points have to be measured; (b) the computation of the transformation parameters from every image to the coordinate reference system; (c) the rough estimation of the camera interior orientation parameters; (d) the estimation of the true horizon line and the nadir point of each image; (e) the calculation of the rough EO parameters of each image. A developed software suite implementing the proposed methodology is tested using a set of UAV multi-perspective oblique aerial images. Several tests are performed for the assessment of the errors and show that the estimated EO parameters can be used either as initial approximations for a bundle adjustment procedure or as rough georeferencing information for several applications, like 3D modelling, even by non-photogrammetrists, because of the minimal user intervention needed. Finally, comparisons with a commercial software are made, in terms of automation and correctness of the computed EO parameters.