METHOD OF SOLVING INITIAL AZIMUTH FOR SURVEY INSTRUMENTS, CAMERAS, AND OTHER DEVICES WITH POSITION AND TILT INFORMATION
First Claim
1. A method for processing data from a camera-based device with improved initial azimuth accuracy, comprising:
- providing a dataset comprising digital images captured by a camera, position information for the camera when each of the digital images was captured, and tilt information for the camera when each of the digital images was captured;
generating a plurality of potential positions for tie-points for the dataset;
performing arbitration to select a most-likely tie-point position from the plurality of potential tie-point positions associated with an initial tie-point;
generating a plurality of additional tie-points based on the most-likely tie-point position of the initial tie-point and an initial azimuth of the camera provided by the initial tie-point; and
performing bundle adjustment on the dataset using the initial tie-point and the plurality of additional tie-points.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method for solving the initial azimuth for a survey instrument, and other devices, with position and tilt information. The method may be part of bundle adjustment performed during the processing of image and position data collected from each camera of a survey instrument. The use of the initial azimuth generation method (and initial azimuth generator) makes it possible to get accurate azimuth orientation of a camera, such as each camera of a multi-camera survey instrument, without using data from a compass-like sensor. The initial azimuth generated by this method can then be used in later steps/processes of the bundle adjustment to find tie-points with an automatic tie-point finder. Prior to this method, the automatic tie-point finding algorithm relied on the compass and its accuracy, and inaccurate compass values would cause a complete failure, slow runtimes, or less accurate results for the bundle adjustment.
-
Citations
20 Claims
-
1. A method for processing data from a camera-based device with improved initial azimuth accuracy, comprising:
-
providing a dataset comprising digital images captured by a camera, position information for the camera when each of the digital images was captured, and tilt information for the camera when each of the digital images was captured; generating a plurality of potential positions for tie-points for the dataset; performing arbitration to select a most-likely tie-point position from the plurality of potential tie-point positions associated with an initial tie-point; generating a plurality of additional tie-points based on the most-likely tie-point position of the initial tie-point and an initial azimuth of the camera provided by the initial tie-point; and performing bundle adjustment on the dataset using the initial tie-point and the plurality of additional tie-points. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
-
-
10. A photogrammetry method, comprising:
-
positioning a device with two or more cameras, a position sensor, and a tilt sensor at a plurality of differing locations; operating the device to capture at each of the locations a dataset including digital images, position data, and tilt data; applying a four-station-one-tie-point algorithm to the dataset to generate a first list of potential tie-point positions each associated with a tie-point for the dataset; applying a two-station-one-tie-point algorithm to the dataset to generate a second list of potential tie-point positions each associated with a tie-point for the dataset; and processing the first and second lists of potential tie-point positions to select a tie-point at a most-likely reliable tie-point position. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. A system for processing geodata from camera-based devices to determine initial azimuth, comprising:
-
a camera-based device comprising at least one camera operable to capture digital images of a physical environment from two or more locations in the physical environment, wherein the camera-based device further includes position and tilt sensors capturing position and tilt information for the camera-based device concurrently with operation of the camera to capture the digital images; and a server providing a geodata analysis module to first process the captured digital images and the position and tilt information in combination with a manually or automatically generated tie-point to generate a plurality of potential tie-point positions, to second determine a most-likely tie point from the plurality of potential tie-point positions, and to provide a bundle adjustment of data gathered by the camera-based device using the most-likely tie point and an initial azimuth for the camera associated with the most-likely tie point. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
-
Specification