ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to present the measurement potential of images obtained by digital, non-metric, small-format camera from low-altitude aerial range. In presented paper, on the basis of two executed projects and a review of selected bibliography, the usefulness of such photos was assessed and the prospects for the development of this field of photogrammetry in the near future were drawn. The purpose of both project was the acquisition of digital images by usage of small-format, non-metric camera placed on selected air platform. In the first experiment, as an aerial platform, a sailplane was used while in the second experiment – octocopter which is unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). On the basis of obtained images a point cloud were generated using image-based matching in both projects. In presented experiments following automatic correlation methods were applied: Area-Based Matching (ABM) and Feature-Based Matching (FBM) as well as an algorithm based on multi-view stereo matching (CMVS/PMVS2). Datasets generated during experiments were used for basic photogrammetric products creation. Their quality was then evaluated with respect to the professional data, including data from the geodetic and cartographic resource. This assessment was investigated to prove the high quality of studies created from images obtained by non-metric cameras, as well as to demonstrate possibilities of their practical future use. Both presented projects showed the potential of low-altitude aerial photogrammetry, which applies small-format digital camera placed on any aerial platform. These tasks are focused primarily on the development of large-scale studies for small areas, generating accurate products such as: digital terrain models, surface models, vector models of any object, orthoimages as a result.