Introduction & History of Photogrammetry
The field of photogrammetry encompasses a wide range of techniques, but is basically a system for measuring objects from photo-grammes. Whilst typically this process involves the use of photographs, it can also use imagery stored electronically taken from video, CCD cameras or sensors. The important characteristic is that the objects being measured are not touched. A recent term that has been used to describe aerial photographs and satellite images is remote sensing.
Photogrammetry can be split into two main areas:
- Far range (aerial)
- Close range (terrestrial)
Photogrammetry results include the following:
- Topographical and thematical maps
- Coordinates of the required object
- Rectified photographs
There are numerous applications of photogrammetry, but this report will mainly deal with aerial photogrammetry and the production of Digital Terrain Models (DTM).
Some notable historical events relating to photogrammetry:
| Year | Event |
| 1851 | French officer Aime Laussedat develops the first photogrammetrical devices and methods. |
| 1858 | The German architect A. Meydenbauer develops photogrammetrical techniques for the documentation of buildings. |
| 1866 | The Viennese physicist Ernst Mach publishes the idea to use the stereoscope to estimate volumetric measures. |
| 1885 | The ancient ruins of Persepolis were the first archaeological object recorded photogrammetrically. |
| 1889 | The first German manual of photogrammetry was published by C. Koppe. |
| 1896 | Eduard Gaston and Daniel Deville present the first stereoscopic instrument for vectorized mapping. |
| 1910 | The ISP (International Society for Photogrammetry), now ISPRS, was founded by E. Dolezal in Austria. |
| 1964 | First architectural tests with the new stereometric camera-system, which had been invented by Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen and Hans Foramitti, Vienna. |
| 1970's | The analytical plotters, which were first used by U. Helava in 1957, revolutionize photogrammetry. |
| 1980's | Due to improvements in computer hardware and software, digital photogrammetry is gaining more and more importance. |
| 1996 | 83 years after its first conference, the ISPRS comes back to Vienna, the town, where it was founded. |