DIY outdoor terrestrial photogrammetry

Paolo Corradeghini in DIY photogrammetry mode

As you may have read before in this blog, i’m a huge fan of DIY (Do It Yoursef stuff).
I lived my youth in a local Punk-Hardcore scene, so DIY was the rule!
🙂

I used what i had the chance to use for terrestrial photogrammetry of a rocky wall in a marble quarry.

Here’s the gear’s list:
– DSLR full frame sensor and high resolution (Nikon D800);
– joint and clamp to fix it to a rod;
– pole/prism holder rod (that i generally use for Total Station surveying activities) that reaches 5 m in height;
– bipod to stabilize the pole and keep it leveled;
– USB cable + extension cable + OTG cable to connect the camera to a tablet;
– tablet, with qDSLRdashboard app, to control the shot of the camera and check real time liveview;
– metric wheel on the ground to measure the displacements between one socket and the other and maintain the correct overlap between the photos.

Pros:
– it works well (and that’s good!);
– you are able to work independently;
– it is quite cheap (apart from camera and lenses);
– it works in tight spaces, where a drone cannot fly;

Cons:
– it is not fast to move around;
– the rod may flex under the weight of the camera and fast shutter speeds are needed to avoid blurred photos;
– you cannot go beyond the height of the rod;
– if you do not have to detect a vertical and homogeneous wall, continuous position adjustments are needed to keep the distance constant.

Anyway, it was fun and output was really good.

You can check the point cloud here.

Or the 3D textured model below.

Ciao!

Paolo Corradeghini