VARTIKA SRIVASTAVA

BARCH/15030/14
4TH SEMESTER
BIT MESRA PATNA
 INTRODUCTION
Aerial photography
Aerial photography is - as it sounds - the process of taking
photographs from the air, but there is more to it than simply
using a light aircraft or helicopter and flying up to take
photographs. There are many elements to an aerial survey
that must be considered to ensure that the data is useful
enough to extrapolate whatever is being investigated. It is
often difficult to see elements of the landscape on the ground,
features can easily be missed, and what might seem like an
insignificant bump from ground level can become more
significant in a wider context (2); some landscape types are
difficult to access on foot so aerial photographs are vital to
study and map them.
 Applications of Aerial Photography
In Archaeology
Aerial photography is ideal for locating lost monuments and tracking features,
especially those that are not visible at ground level, those that are under the soil and
cannot be seen on a field walk and those that can only be seen under certain
conditions.
Crop Marks and Parch Marks: Seen in summer, crop marks are signs of a
subterranean feature that show up as irregularities in the pattern of crops.

Soil Marks: Best studied in winter when no crops are growing or grasses have large
died off, both rainy and dry conditions are conducive to picking out buried features.

Low Profile Monuments: From the ground they may seem like natural bumps in the
ground or be so slight as to be barely perceptible. From the air, their appearance is
far more revealing.

In Urban Studies
Town developers need to study the impact of expansion and development of urban
centres on the landscape and the impact on the environment .
Aerial Survey
It is a method of collecting geomatics or other imagery by
using aeroplanes, helicopters, UAVs, balloons or other aerial methods.
Typical types of data collected are aerial photography, LiDAR, remote
sensing (using various visible and invisible bands of theelectromagnetic
spectrum, such as infrared, gamma, or ultraviolet) and also geophysical
data (such as aeromagnetic surveys and gravity. It can also refer to the
chart or map made by analysing a region from the air. Aerial survey
should be distinguished from satellite imagery technologies because of
its better resolution, quality and atmospheric conditions. Today, aerial
survey is sometimes recognized as a synonym for aerophotogrammetry,
part of photogrammetry where the camera is placed in the air.
Measurements on aerial images are provided
by photogrammetric technologies and methods.[1]
Terms used in aerial survey
flying height
the elevation of the exposure station above the datum (usually mean sea level).
altitude
the vertical distance of the aircraft above the earth surface.
tilt
the angle between the aerial camera and the horizontal axis perpendicular to the line of flight.
tip
the angle between the aerial camera and the line of flight.
principal point
the point of intersection of the optical axis of the aerial camera with the photographical plane
isocentre
the point on the areal photograph in which the bisector of the angle of tilt meets the photograph.
nadir point
the image of the nadir, i.e. the point on the areal photograph where a plumbline dropped from the front nodal point pierces
the photograph.
scale
ratio of the focal length of the camera objective and the distance of the exposure station from the ground
 In Climate Change
• These global changes are reflected everywhere, and societies and communities
are seeing changes to their local environment. I
• f it isn't river beds drying up, droughts getting longer, wetter seasons getting
wetter and the reduction of inland lakes drying up completely,
• one of the most practical applications is tracking of invasive species into water
bodies that just a few years ago would not have provided an adequate
environment for those species.
• Researchers keep vital records in changes over seasons and years to track
local effects of climate change and risks to local ecosystems.
• Localised aerial photographs will highlight the die-off of certain vegetation, or
the increase of invasive species.
Aerial photography
in modern era of
surveying
Aerial photography was one of the major developments in the history of
modern mapping and surveying. Land that would have taken weeks or
months to survey on the ground could be photographed in days, and
photographs, once adjusted to remove distortions such as camera angles,
could be turned into maps.
The first aerial photograph was taken in New Zealand in 1919, when the
chief instructor for the New Zealand Flying School, George Bolt, took the
chief photographer of the Auckland Weekly News on a flight over
Auckland.

Aerial photography was first used in a survey on 27 March 1926, when

the air force did a survey of the Waimakariri River in Canterbury. This
covered 160 square miles (414 hectares) and resulted in 67 glass plate
negatives. A print of the mosaic created from the photographs still exists.
Photogrammetry
References
http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/remote/remote_f.html
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/research/landscapes-and-
areas/aerial-survey/archaeology/
http://www.historic-
cornwall.org.uk/flyingpast/images/PDF_downloads/Aerial%20Survey.pdf
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/research/landscapes-and-
areas/aerial-survey/archaeology/aerial-reconnaissance/
http://www.papainternational.org/history.asp
http://www.papainternational.org/aerial_photography_today.asp
http://gis-lab.info/docs/books/aerial-mapping/cr1557_05.pdf
http://www.bajr.org/documents/aerialsurvey.pdf
http://www.rcahmw.gov.uk/LO/ENG/Heritage+of+Wales/Gallery/Aerial+Photograph
y/
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/115a/lectures/geometry_of_aerial_photographs_
notes.html