UAV photogrammetry in PostGIS – point cloud

We will use the techniques we've used in a previous recipe, Creating arbitrary 3D objects for PostGIS, of this chapter, to learn how to create and import a UAV-derived point cloud in PostGIS.

One caveat before we begin is that while we will be working with geospatial data, we will be doing so in relative space, rather than a known coordinate system. In other words, this approach will calculate our dataset in an arbitrary coordinate system. ST_Affine could be used in combination with the field measurements of locations to transform our data into a known coordinate system, but is beyond the scope of this book.

Getting ready

Much like with the recipe, Creating arbitrary 3D objects for PostGIS, we will be taking an image series and converting it into a point cloud. In this case, however, our image series will be from UAV imagery. Download the image series from http://www.packtpub.com/support and feed it into http://my3dscanner.com or a local Bundler...