LABORATORY EXERCISE 2

Photoscale and Flying Height

Determination & Photo
Coordinate Measurement

Submitted by:
Constancio Orolfo III

Submitted to:
Engineer Bienvenido G. Carcellar III
I. Objective

This laboratory exercise aimed to determine the scale of an aerial photo and the flying height
used during data acquisition and to apply different methods of measuring coordinates of objects
in an aerial photograph.

II. Materials and Instruments Used

The materials used in this exercise:

• 1 aerial photograph of UP Diliman and its vicinity
• 1 topographic map of UP Diliman
• 1 campus map of UP Diliman
• AutoCAD Civil 3D
• Image editing software

III. Procedure

A. For the first part of the exercise, the following steps are followed:
a. Open the aerial photograph and select four (4) points near the corners of the
photograph and connect these points to form crossed lines.
b. Open the topographic map and mark the same points as the aerial photograph and
connect these points in a cross
c. Get the length of the lines on the photographs and their lengths on the map. Use
the equation for photoscale and get the average of two values, for the scale of the
photograph. Compute the flying height from the values obtained.
B. For the second part of the exercise, we import the aerial photo onto Autocad.
a. Attach the aerial photo onto the workspace.
b. Use the fiducial marks to create the coordinate axes that will be used for this part
of the exercise. Connect two fiducial marks with a line and from the fiducial mark
without a pair, draw a that is a perpendicular bisector to the first. These are the new
coordinate axes.
c. Move the UCS of the drawing to the intersection of the axes, this is now the origin.
d. Rotate the image and the axes to be upright.
i. Simple Coordinate Measurement
1. Pinpoint 3 objects in the photo, note them down and encircle them.
2. Create lines perpendicular from the axes to the centers of the
circles.
3. The lengths of the lines are coordinates of the centers of the
circles, consequently the points of interest.
ii. Trilaterative Method of Photo Coordinate Measurement
1. Measure the distances of centers to two fiducial marks.
2. Compute for an internal angle with the cosine law, and use this
internal angle to solve for the bearing of the center from a fiducial
mark.
 3. Use the length and bearing to compute coordinates of the object.
4. Repeat these steps for the other fiducial marks.
5. Get the average of the coordinates from the two runs of the first
steps.
6. Repeat the previous steps for the other points.

IV. Observations and Data

1. First
i. The points used were connected and are shown in the photo below, they are near
the corners of the map. The ground distance was computed from the topographic
map.
ii. The photoscale is 1:5000.
iii. The flying height was computed to be 836.735m

Figure 1. The topographic map of UP Diliman with points connected with green lines.
Figure 2. An aerial image of UP Diliman and its surroundings. The points here are the same as the points on figure
1, connected with green lines.

2. Second
i. Simple
1. 1st object: Circular chapel (-31.5185, 23.2603)
2. 2nd object: Track oval (-37.5934, -14.1404)
3. 3rd object: Quezon Hall (-3.351, -27.0875)
ii. Trilaterative
1. For the first pair of fiducial marks, the leftmost and topmost endpoints
were used. The alpha angle is the angle between the side AB and side
connecting the leftmost fiducial to the point of interest. The beta angle was
obtained by subtracting the alpha from 45 degrees. For the second part of
computations the remaining fiducial points are used. The alpha is from the
side where the center is connected to the rightmost fiducial point to the
side where the fiducial points are connected. The beta is obtained from
subtracting 45 degrees from the alpha.
a. 1st object: Circular chapel (-31.68944313, 23.8503175)
b. 2nd object: Track oval (-37.59339701, -14.14040591)
c. 3rd object: Quezon Hall (-3.357121378, -27.0875391)
Figure 3. Aerial photo of UP Diliman with axes, colored yellow, passing through the fiducial points, and points of
interest encircled in red.

V. Computation
1. The distances in the aerial photo were 160.2 mm and 155.4 mm. On the topographic map
they were 86.1 and 83.7 mm, respectively. The equivalent ground distances are then 861000
and 837000 mm.

0.00018606271 = 160.2/861000

0.00018566308 = 155.4/837000

(0.00018606271 + 0.00018566308)/2 = 0.0018213467

The scale is 1:5490.44270 or simply, 1:5000. To compute for the flying height, we used
the focal length of 6 inches, divided by the scale 0.0018213467. The height came out to be
32942.65721 inches or 836.7435 meters.

2. For obtaining the coordinates of points of interest.

 Figures 3.1 and 3.2. 3.1 shows the triangles created by measuring the distance from two (2) fiducial points, the
leftmost and topmost. 3.2 shows the triangles created by measuring the distance from two (2) fiducial points, the
rightmost and bottommost.

The table below shows the computation and values used to compute the coordinates for the Trilaterative
Method
Table 1. Table of obtained and computed values for the Trilaterative method.

DISTAN CORNER
points of DISTANC c2-a2- alpha Y
CE TO -2ab beta1 X0 LAT DEP X Y AVE X AVE Y
interest E FROM A b2 1 0
FROM B CORNER

- -
85.699 95.058 24300. 2763 0.87 28.4 24.44 82.139
church 161.220 231 2.7 94 298 16.570 -114 0 04 63 -31.86 24.4404 -31.689443 23.850318
- - -
14196. 2505 0.56 55.4 14.14 76.406 -
oval 77.704 133.541 161.220 687 5 66 85 -10.485 -114 0 05 64 37.593 -14.14 -37.593397 -14.14041
- - -
19050. 3672 0.51 58.7 27.08 110.64 -
q hall 113.910 141.128 161.220 593 9.3 87 57 -13.757 -114 0 8 29 3.3571 -27.088 -3.3571214 -27.08754

- - -
27874. 4751 0.58 54.0 23.26 145.51 -
church 147.366 140.833 161.220 871 6.7 66 82 9.082 114 0 03 9 31.519 23.2603
- - - -
37787. 4909 0.76 39.6 14.14 151.59 -
oval 152.252 106.702 161.220 294 2.1 97 71 -5.329 114 0 04 3 37.593 -14.14
- - - -
32933. 3883 0.84 32.0 27.08 117.35 -
Q hall 120.442 86.977 161.220 354 5.6 8 03 -12.997 114 0 75 7 3.3571 -27.087
VI. Answers to Questions

1. Answers to questions on determining the photoscale

i. The points on the corners enable the lines to cover more distances. The
disadvantage, of course, is that the image becomes more distorted at the edges,
making measurements there less reliable.
ii. The scales that were produced by the two lines were different to a certain extent.
As usual, human error may be a main culprit here, as the lines drawn may have not
been measured properly.
iii. For navigational purposes, the aerial photo may be a flimsy substitute, but in
general it cannot replace maps. However, the measurements could be unreliable if
obtained from an aerial photo. Maps present the terrain parallel to the plane, thus
distances or measurements are more reliable.
iv. For photos, the resolution can also be a way to determine the photoscale [1]. The
resolution informs us of the smallest measurement of a feature on the ground that
can be identified on the image. The photoscale is obtained by dividing the
resolution of the image by the measurement of the smallest detail [1].
2. Answers to questions on obtaining coordinates.
i. They can differ as much as tenths. I believe that the simpler method would be more
accurate if and only if the origin is correctly placed at the proper point.
ii. The errors could be from the rounding of values. It could also be from the skewness
of the original image and how the ends of the coordinate axes are not exactly in
line or at the fiducial marks. This is, in turn, due to the length of sides of the picture
not being 228 mm exactly.
iii. There were marks/divots on the edge of the images that we used as fiducial marks
for the coordinate axes.
iv. We can use more combinations of fiducial marks to get more values to obtain the
mean off of.
v. Straight edges, such as rulers and triangles, and compasses and protractors for
drawing arcs and measuring angles.

VII. Conclusion

To conclude, the aerial photo provided had a scale of 1:5000. This scale was obtained by getting
the ground distances of lines on the photo from a topographic map of the same location. Aerial
maps by their own do not serve as replacements for maps. From the given information about
the focal length of the camera used, and the obtained photoscale the flying height of the vehicle
that took the photo was determined to be a little over 800 meters.

Furthermore, in determining coordinates, establishing the axes is paramount importance. The

simple method allows us to obtain the coordinates based on an arbitrary coordinate reference
system. The use of fiducial marks also allows us to obtain the coordinates in a different way.
By using the distances of the points from the fiducial marks, coordinates of a point, with respect
to fiducial marks can be obtained.
VIII. References
1. Principe, J.A. GsE 188 Lecture 4: Principles of Aerial Photography and Photo Scale
Determination (2017).