On the accuracy of 3D landscapes from UAV image data

Our surroundings change all the time. Applications that require 3D models of a changing terrain, such as urban planning, are becoming ever more demanding with respect to the cost to create them and the accuracy of the result. A novel, cheap and fast solution for this problem is given by a UAV to take aerial images of the terrain in question, in combination with structure from motion algorithms to create a 3D model from those aerial images. However the question remains whether these on-the-fly 3D maps can match the accuracy of classical surveyor based models, which require more time to create. In this paper we investigate this question, and find that under certain conditions the accuracy of the UAV based model matches the accuracy of surveyor generated measurements.