[GH85Carrera]

Morning all.

The program we use is pretty cool for making the final orthophoto. I am working on another area that is 480 images. The program is used the GPS and IMU from the camera pod to determine the X, Y, & X and if we have ground control it uses that data as well. It builds a surface map of the ground. Sort of like a giant rubber mold of every shape. So every hill, drainage ditch, building, car, utility pole all gets a 3D model at 1 to 1 scale, then it drapes the composite image over that shape to make every building stand straight up, and correct for the variations in the elevation.

It does a pretty good job on the first try. But we always have to use a human to tweak the inevitable errors. It all depends on what the customer ordered, and that of course can vary price we charge for a project. Everyone always wants ultra high resolution, and ultra high precision. Just like race cars, how fast do you want to spend. We love the big high precision jobs, but so many clients confuse high resolution with high accuracy. They are not the same.

If all they need is a pretty picture of an area accuracy is irrelevant. A print of a square mile at a resolution of 1"=200' would be a 30x30 inch print. With the best ruler you can't measure an object that is just 20 feet across with any real precision on a flat print, and no one needs to. We have the digital image for that.