EVALUATING A NADIR AND AN OBLIQUE CAMERA FOR 3D INFRASTRUCTURE (CITY) MODEL GENERATION

Abstract. The analysis of Earth’s surface is strongly associated with the creation of three dimensional representations. In light of this, researchers involved in any realm of research as, geological, hydrological, ecological planning, city modelling, civil infrastructure monitoring, disaster management and emergency response, require 3D information of high fidelity and accuracy. For many decades, aerial photos or satellite data and photogrammetry provided the necessary information. In recent years, high-resolution imagery acquired by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) has become a cost-efficient and quite accurate solution. In this framework, an infrastructure-monitoring project, named called “PROION”, focuses among others on the generation of very fine and highly accurate 3D infrastructure (city) model. The specific study evaluates a high-resolution nadir camera and an oblique camera for the creation of a 3D representation of the Patras University Campus. During the project, two identical flights over a part of the campus were conducted. The flights were performed with a vertical take-off and landing (Vtol) fixed wind UAV equipped with PPK receiver on-board. Based on the conducted flights, many data sets have been evaluated regarding the accuracy and fidelity. It was proved that both nadir and oblique cameras produced very accurate 3D representations of the University campus buildings. The RMSE error of the nadir imagery is almost two times higher than the respective error of the oblique imagery reaching 30cm.