Assessment of Panorama Photogrammetry as a Tool for Long-Range Deformation Monitoring

Abstract

This study investigates panorama photogrammetry (PPh) as a potential method to collect massive 3D information for long-range deformation monitoring. Particularly, this study focuses on areas with measuring restrictions, i.e., inaccessible objects and distances above 0.6 km. Under these particular conditions, geodetic techniques based on Electromagnetic Distance Meters (EDMs) or Total Stations (TSs) can provide coordinates with a precision better than 1 cm, but only for a limited number of discrete points. For mass capture, Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) is normally the preferred solution, but long-range instruments are expensive, and drawbacks such as weak return signals and non-automatic target recognition appear. As an alternative, PPh is investigated in the well-controlled area of La Muela in Cortes de Pallas, where images are automatically captured from geodetic pillars using a GigaPan device, processed, and then rigorously compared to TLS point clouds. The results obtained after integrating both techniques into a high-accuracy geodetic reference frame show that PPh and TLS provide similar precision to within approximately 4 cm in the range of 0.6–1.0 km. Therefore, considering cost-effectiveness and ease of use, the proposed method can be considered a low-cost alternative to TLS for long-range deformation monitoring.