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History

Two thousand years of measuring the world from images.

Photogrammetry is the science or technique for obtaining reliable information on the natural environment or physical objects by recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images or produced by electromagnetic radiation or other phenomena.

The name comes from the Greek photos (light), gramma (something written or drawn) and metron (measure).

Engraving of figures watching light rays projected from the sky
Illustration from Oculus artificialis teledioptricus sive Telescopium, 1685
Part 1 · 500 BC – 1911

Emergence of photogrammetry technologies#

  1. 500 BC

    Camera obscura

    Known in China around 500 BC, then described by Aristotle (350 BC), Al-Haytham (around 1000) and Leonardo da Vinci (around 1500).

    Engraving of a room-sized camera obscura projecting a landscape onto a wall
    Illustration of a room-sized camera obscura · Wikipedia
  2. ~1430

    Alberti

    Ludi rerum mathematicarum and Descriptio Urbis Romae.

  3. ~1500

    Leonardo da Vinci

    Tries to determine the painter's eye point from a perspective painting.

    Renaissance painting of an ideal city with red perspective lines converging on the vanishing point
    La Città ideale, unknown author
  4. 1540

    Gerolamo Cardano

    Adds a lens to the camera obscura.

  5. 1604

    Kepler

    First mathematical theory of the camera obscura.

  6. 1611

    Camera lucida

    An optical drawing aid, later patented by Wollaston in 1806.

    Engraving of a man tracing a statuette through a camera lucida
    Camera lucida in use · Wikipedia
  7. 1726

    Kappeler

    Topographic map of a Swiss mountain range using perspective drawings.

  8. 1793

    Beautemps-Beaupré

    Hydrography: coastline maps drawn during expeditions from angular and distance measurements.

    Hand-drawn coastline views and map of an island archipelago
    Archipel de Santa Cruz, Beautemps-Beaupré
  9. 1826

    Niépce: the first photograph

    Grainy black and white view of rooftops from a window
    View from the Window at Le Gras, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce · Wikipedia
  10. 1836

    Daguerreotype

    A “gift to the world” from the French Academy.

    Illustrated diagram of the seven steps of the daguerreotype process
    Illustration by Susanna Celeste Castelli, DensityDesign Research Lab · Wikipedia
  11. 1849

    Laussedat

    Metrophotography.

  12. 1881

    Meydenbauer

    The Royal Prussian Institute for Photogrammetry.

  13. 1885

    First archaeological recording

    The ancient ruins of Persepolis.

  14. 1889

    Koppe

    Publication of the first photogrammetry manual.

  15. 1911

    Scheimpflug: first aerial photogrammetry

    Rectified photographs.

    A pigeon wearing a miniature camera harness Black and white aerial photographs of German towns
    Pigeon with miniature camera and aerial photographs of Germany
Part 2 · 1615 – 2003

Emergence of mathematical solutions#

The geometric problems at the heart of today's 3D Computer Vision were posed — and often solved — long before computers.

3D pose problem

  • 1615Snellius
  • 1773Lagrange
  • 1841Grunert

Epipolar geometry

  • 1862Terrero
  • 1883Hauck
  • 1899Finsterwalder

Trifocal geometry

  • 1883Hauck

Motion estimation

  • 1880Schröter — 4-point problem for coplanar object points
  • 1913Kruppa — 5-point problem
  • 2003Nistér — first algorithm for the 5-point problem giving at most 10 solutions

3D modeling from a single image

  • ~1800Laussedat
  • 1883Hauck
  • 1892Meydenbauer

Reconstruction from uncalibrated images

and projective reconstruction

  • 1883Hauck
  • 1899Finsterwalder

Camera self-calibration

  • 1892Meydenbauer
  • 1899Finsterwalder

Today

AliceVision builds on these foundations — open source, for anyone to test, analyze and reuse.

Explore the pipelines →