SIMPLIFIED BUILDING MODELS EXTRACTION FROM ULTRA-LIGHT UAV IMAGERY

Abstract

Generating detailed simplified building models such as the ones present on Google Earth is often a difficult and lengthy manual task, requiring advanced CAD software and a combination of ground imagery, LIDAR data and blueprints. Nowadays, UAVs such as the AscTec Falcon 8 have reached the maturity to offer an affordable, fast and easy way to capture large amounts of oblique images covering all parts of a building. In this paper we present a state-of-the-art photogrammetry and visual reconstruction pipeline provided by Pix4D applied to medium resolution imagery acquired by such UAVs. The key element of simplified building models extraction is the seamless integration of the outputs of such a pipeline for a final manual refinement step in order to minimize the amount of manual work.