A Basic Theory of Intelligent Photogrammetron

This paper presents a basic theory of intelligent photogrammetry and corresponding physically independent agent systems named Photogrammetron. Intelligent photogrammetry is a fusion of ideas, techniques and applications from digital photogrammetry, active vision and intelligent agents, aiming at developing highly automatic and intelligent photogrametric systems. The tenet of intelligent photogrammetry is that photogrammetry is a nonlinear process for which a full automation, if indeed required, is only possible if and only if the system is an autonomous and intelligent agent system. In its basic form, photogrammetron refers to a stereo photogrammetric system which is designed to possess an architecture of intelligent agent, a physical structure of qualitative and active vision, and a complete functionality of quantitative photogrammetry. In a broader sense, photogrammetron may have three physically different forms: I – coherent stereo photogrammetron, II – separated stereo photogramemtron and III – multi-camera network photogrammetron. Principal applications of photogrammetron include: photogrammetry-enabled robots, intelligent closerange photogrammetry, intelligent video surveillance, real-time digital videogrammetry. The agent architecture of photogrammetry consists mainly of five components: imaging perception, scene beliefs and models, missions and desires, intentions and planning, action and control. The photogrammetric visual information processing comprises seven major parts: motion camera calibration and relative orientation, optical flow computation and object tracking, stereo focus of attention and vergence control, stereo motion image sequence matching and correspondence maintenance, object structure from motion, multi-object tracking and recognition. While a complete realization of photogrammetron design will take time to appear, this paper only intends to outline a basic theory and address fundamental theoretical feasibility and challenging problems. A real prototype of Photogrammetron-I is under development.