CAMERA ORIENTATION

The term camera orientation describes the process by which the relative positions and spatial orientation (pointing direction) of each of the images employed in the network of two or more camera stations are mathematically reconstructed with respect to the object/scene that has been recorded. You can visualise this process by considering a single object point which is imaged or 'seen' from two camera station positions. If you can recreate the position (XYZ coordinates) of each camera station and you know the spatial direction of the two light rays from the object point to the images, then the object point position will be at the point of intersection of the two rays. The photogrammetric orientation process rebuilds this geometry from measurements of points within the images. A simple oriented network of two camera stations and a nine-point target array is shown in the figure below.