Many of us are familiar with digital photogrammetry – you know, the science of establishing 3D coordinates using some nice digital cameras and some very cool software. But did you know that the principles of photogrammetry date back to the late 1400s? One of the first known proponents of this was actually Leonardo Da Vinci, who studied how to use projective geometry as a measurement tool. In the 1800s, Aime Laussedat pioneered the use of terrestrial photographs for topographic map creation from hot air balloons. How fun would that have been?

But if we fast-forward to the 1990s from Ye Olden Days, we see a time when software was getting much more powerful and computers were getting smaller. We also see pretty cool digital cameras being developed with high density imaging arrays. Put all those things together, and voila! You have modern digital photogrammetry. But wait, though, something’s missing….