Photogrammetry and Point Cloud Modeling with the Incorporation of Micro-Drones for Web Mapping Applications

Abstract

Drones and Micro-Drones have played a major role in homeland security and various divisions of the Department of Defense. Needless to say, this technology has passed from military hands to the average citizen. Some may use this as a recreational pastime, others as a hobby. However, with major advances in photogrammetry software this technology has proven to be a vital instrument in the geospatial field. This investigation includes a comparative analysis of three photogrammetric software’s: Agisoft Photoscan, Pix4D and VisualSFM. They were utilized to create sparse and dense point cloud comparisons; these models were visually inspected and assessed given a set of images. Upon completion of the experiment, a webpage interface was created to provide a detailed perspective of these models and their functionality. Key Terms - Drone Mapping, Pix4D, Photogrammetry, Photoscan, VisualSFM, Web Mapping, Web Mapping and Point Cloud.