THE NEXT GENERATION VEXCEL IMAGING 3D CITY MODELLING USING DIRECTLY GEOREFERENCED DATA

Abstract. Since their first wide scale adoption after WWII, airborne cameras have continuously served the airborne mapping profession for over seven decades. During this time, they evolved to be meticulously designed, engineered, and most importantly built with the lens geometry to produce high precision mapping products. Mapping Standards have been well established around the globe for federal, state, and municipal governments with these cameras’ capabilities and limitations in mind. On the other hand, in the last two decades, service providers from around the world proved that direct georeferencing systems have been the best and most efficient approach for airborne mapping using large and medium format cameras, especially for 3D city modelling and corridor mapping applications. The state-of-the art today is thus to use a high-end large format camera or an oblique camera including a high-end mapping grade nadir image with an embedded direct georeferencing system to produce high-precision and high-resolution 3D city models without the need or expense of surveying extensive ground control points. This paper presents the results of the state-of-the-art in airborne digital mapping cameras from Vexcel that are tightly integrated with a direct georeferencing solution from Trimble Applanix. Two Flights are presented in this paper, namely: 1) Gleisdorf Calibration and Accuracy Assessment flight, and 2) Graz Map Production Flight.