Methodological Development to Improve the Accuracy of External Stereo-Photogrammetric Surveys of Buildings

Although unmanned aircraft (UA) based surveys are becoming a more common solution, their accuracy is questionable. Regulation is a major issue in the use of UA, which is currently having a negative impact on the spread of the technology. Many rules need to be applied during the survey and there are hundreds of settings to use during post-processing. Testing and evaluation of several combinations is necessary for an optimized process definition. In the present research, studies have been carried out focusing on different solutions of survey methodologies. The case studies analyzed different survey, flight rules and their combinations. The study presents the advantages and disadvantages of using UA and makes recommendations for survey methodologies through the evaluations carried out. In addition, several future research directions are presented which could lead to the advancement of building surveys.