Factorial-Design-Based Uncertainty Analysis for Stereo-Vision Photogrammetry

This article presents an efficient factorial-design-based method to calculate uncertainty propagation in the triangulation process in stereo-vision photogrammetry. A three-level full factorial numerical simulation experiment is executed by regarding 3-D measuring points as responses and image point pairs as factors. Hence, the covariance matrix of the 3-D measuring point coordinate can be computed from the responses of the factorial experiment with corresponding weights. The measurement uncertainties in x -, y -, and z -axis directions as well as the principal axis direction are computed from the covariance matrix of the 3-D measuring point coordinate. The results calculated by the proposed method are compared with that of the Monte Carlo method, which shows that the proposed method can achieve equivalent precision with less computation cost. The spatial-variant uncertainty distribution of stereo-vision photogrammetry is analyzed using the proposed method. Measurement uncertainties under different parameters of stereo-vision photogrammetric system are discussed.