Photogrammetry basically means measuring in photographs. The main application is to create topographic maps from overlapping aerial photos. Over almost a century, analogue stereo photographs were used for the manual measurements of topography for maps – a very expensive and time-consuming procedure. It was important to minimize the number of photographs. Typically, an overlap of 60% within strips and 20% between strips was used.
Since two decades digital cameras and automatic photogrammetric measurements have been used. Adding more images is cheap. However, processing all the images still takes quite some time. Furthermore, even with an increased typical overlap of 80%, details of objects may be occluded.
I-CONIC provides the solution of the future using real-time videogrammetry. Videos with 30 frames per second or more provide extreme amounts of image data, while processing on GPU enables real time processing. The 3D and 4D information can be generated while the flying vehicle is still in the air. It is photogrammetry on steroids. And real-time videogrammetry can be used for sports, entertainment, science and so much more than topographic maps.
