Structure from motion survey

As a topographic team at the University of Glasgow we used a DJI Phantom 4 UAV and the Pix4D photogrammetric software to perform image acquisition and create a densified Digital Surface Model point cloud of the university sports grounds using Structure from Motion.

Ground truth was captured at custom made high visibility targets using a Real Time Kinematic GNSS Leica antenna. The broader aim was to evaluate and report on achievable data quality and outline implications of the method, but the accuracy achieved for the time taken by the survey was impressive.