Estimating deformation process through single shot close range photogrammetry method in Agisoft Metashape

Abstract

Active development of digital cameras and computer software has made close-range photogrammetry an extremely popular way to solve various engineering tasks, in particular, to control deformations of constructions and mining objects. Automated measurement of tie points enables reviving traditional techniques of deformation measurement through single shot photogrammetric approach (a zero basis, pseudo parallaxes) at a qualitatively new level. The paper deals with the contour mapping equal displacement method adaptation offered by the first author in the 1970s for processing in Agisoft Metashape. It is proposed to create a virtual basis for two single multi-temporal images by adding a matrix of empty pixels to them. This enables processing those as stereo pair, building virtual point clouds and altitude matrices. In order to test the technique, the authors considered the deflection deformation of various objects under lab conditions and shot their photos with a non-metric camera before and after loading. The obtained images were processed in Metashape, and then the above products were created and contours of equal deformations were plotted. It was found out that the accuracy of displacement value estimation with this method exceeds the spatial resolution of the images more than three times. The technology is applicable for objects deformations monitoring shifting mainly in a single plane, in future it is planned to test it in field at studying slope processes