Aerial Photo Mosiacing

Introduction: With all of the data from our Balloon mapping, the photos needed to be put into a mosiac. Instead of using a free program off of the internet, I used ArcGIS this time around. ArcGIS offers more flexibility in photo manipulation as well as allowing you to georeference with control points.


Methodology: While some students flew the balloon over campus some others took out a GPS unit to record some control points. The control points serve as a reference point on the land scape that allows you to georeference your photos. The control points are recorded at points that can be seen from satellite imagery. The idea is if the control point is suppose to be at a light post, you can georeference your photo to that light post. Besides lining up sidewalks, roads and building, the control points give you one more tool to align photos up to an existing background.

Control points

With such a large area to mosiac, the class also split the University up into smaller areas to be mosaiced by groups of three.

Area to be mosiaced

With my little experience in mosiacing, I gave my best shot at getting the photos lined up.

Here is the same map with my first picture mosaic.

And my second picture.

Discussion: The most difficult part of this exercise was to work with the different angles that the camera took. Even on the calm day that we had for the second balloon launch, there are still angles that you have to deal with especially with buildings. Also with over 5000 photos to choose from, it can be rather dull looking through all of the photos and trying to find one that doesn't have too dramatic angles.

Conclusion: Once again this was an interesting exercise. This would be a good way to get some detailed photos of a piece of property for planning, etc. I enjoyed this exercise and it gave me some more time to work with ArcMAP. It was also interesting to see how much has changed at the University with all of the construction.