Design and implementation of a computational processing system for off-line digital close-range photogrammetry

Through the adoption of recent innovations in automation in vision metrolog y, it can be demonstrated that rigorous, yet user-friendly digital photogra mmetric processes of calibration and orientation/triangulation can be incor porated into a computational scheme which is on the one hand capable of mee ting the demands of high metric quality. while on the other offering the fa cilities necessary to support wider application by non-specialist users. Th e software system Australis, developed for image mensuration and restitutio n of off-line close-range photogrammetric networks, is featured to illustra te these processes and procedures. By describing the structure and componen ts of Australis, the authors aim to demonstrate that many processes which h ave on occasion been viewed to be the exclusive province of automated, high -precision vision metrology are indeed suited to more general application a cross a broad range of fields which involve 3D object recording via close-r ange imagery. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.