Photogrammetric Processing of Spherical Panoramas

Panoramic images have increasingly interesting applications and they are extensively used for cultural heritage documentation and virtual 3D environments. Moreover, it has been proven that they can contain good metric content. This paper describes a state-of-the-art photogrammetric tool based on spherical panoramas. The fundamental photogrammetric equations are reviewed and two real applications are examined in order to illustrate its performance in terms of accuracy and efficiency. As a first step towards the automation of the orientation and restitution process, the epipolar geometry of spherical panoramic images has also been investigated. With a view to its integration in photogrammetric tools, the shape of the epipolar line is studied both in 3D space and as a 2D mapping; the results obtained with simulation data are analysed.