Photogrammetry With Drones: In Mapping Technology

Identify the instruments and requirements for drone photogrammetry, including flight planning and image acquisition, plus analog and digital plotters used to transform aerial imagery into maps.

Plan flight lines and fly at altitudes around 8000 to 10000 meters at 200 to 350 km/h to capture scalable, detailed photographs from multiple images for precise photogrammetry.

Learn drone photogrammetry basics, including 60% forward overlap and 20–30% side overlap, forming flight-line strips and blocks for triangulation and locating photos on an airport index map.

Explore the legacy types of aerial photographs used in photogrammetry, including satellite imagery, aircraft-captured images, and ground or close-range still photography.

Explore vertical and oblique aerial photographs, including low angle (about 30 degrees) and high angle (about 60 degrees), and learn how multi-lens systems capture overlapping images to create 3D views.

Explore how photo center, perspective geometry, and relief displacement shape aerial imagery in drone photogrammetry, showing how objects of different elevations appear displaced relative to their bases.

Explore stereoscopic coverage in photogrammetry using stereo pairs to create a 3D view. The brain combines these overlapping photos to interpret a realistic scene.

Explore how interior and exterior orientation link camera geometry to real-world coordinates, using image and ground coordinate systems, GCPs, aerial triangulation, and bundle adjustment.

Learn to interpret aerial photos through object recognition and visual cues—color, brightness, contrast, texture, shapes, shadows, and associations—applied to geology, land use, and city and highway planning.

Learn how contour lines represent elevation and slope on drone-based photogrammetry maps, including index and intermediate contours, ridges, valleys, saddles, and earthwork optimization for site selection.

Master orthographic projection to represent 3D objects with orthogonal projection lines on projection planes, yielding top, front, and right views, using horizontal, vertical, profile planes, and first and third-angle projections.

Learn first angle projection by placing the object in the first quadrant with a nontransparent projection plane between observer and object; compare to third angle projection used in USA.

Explore placement tool boxes for points, lines, and polygons, including placing points at distances, creating lines with various styles, and forming complex polygon shapes with fill, holes, and patterns.

Learn to place circles, ellipses, and arcs with the placement tool boxes, adjusting center, diameter, radius, rotation, and sweep angles for accurate mapping.

Master the hatch pattern toolbox, including crosshatch and linear hatch options, and apply union, intersection, and difference to polygons while using distance and angle measurements.

Master micro station manipulation tools to copy, move, scale, rotate, and mirror elements; align to polygons; trim and extend; group, unlock, and apply smart match and find-and-replace for attributes.

Learn to set up a photogrammetry project for drone-based mapping by creating or opening a project, configuring mapping scale and units, and managing the library.

Learn to draw and edit lines and polygons for roads, buildings, and other features using collect line, close polygon, uphill and downhill detection, and XY edits.

Learn to draw and edit lines in photogrammetry with snaps, intersections, and vertex tools; adjust heights, slopes, and building outlines for accurate mapping.

Master drawing and editing lines in photogrammetry by adjusting tolerance and cleaning tools, changing line symbology and construction class, and managing data collection across multiple modes.

Draw offset lines dynamically and edit offset elements for multilane features, and configure display, symbology, and feature code settings to support accurate data collection.

Learn to create DTM and contours from drone photogrammetry by placing mass points and break lines, building surfaces, and refining elevations with major and minor contours and automated labeling.

Execute the photogrammetry data capture workflow from acquiring aerial photographs to aerial triangulation and feature collection for accurate DTM generation.