Aligning Digital Elevation Data with Terrestrial Photos

Dr. Stephen Dow

Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Alabama in Huntsville

August 29, 2008
219 Shelby Center
3:00 PM (Refreshments at 2:30)

Abstract

Elevation data is available for most of the earth's surface. Typically it comes in the form of a grid of elevation values at points equally spaced in longitude and latitude (geographic coordinates). Such a dataset is often called a digital elevation model (DEM). In this talk we will be discussing the problem of aligning this DEM with terrestrial photos; i.e., outdoor photos taken at approximately ground level, typically by a camera placed a tripod. We "stitch" the set of photos taken from a given tripod placement into a panoramic image, and then would like to align the DEM with that image, so as to have a surface which approximates the shape of the ground visible in the image. We will discuss mathematical aspects of solving that problem and illustrate with some real world examples.