3D Data Acquisition

The "3D Data Acquisition" cluster is one of the five research groups at the Geography Department (Faculty of Sciences) at Ghent University. The research activities focus on spatial, terrestrial and bathymetrical acquisition techniques for 3D data. Our research group forms, together with the "CartoGis Cluster", the discipline of Geomatics. Prof. dr. Rudi Goossens is specialized in the field of remote sensing and photogrammetry, Prof. dr. ir. Alain De Wulf is specialized in the field of satellite positioning systems, topography, bathymetry and laser scanning.

The spatial 3D data acquisition techniques are based on satellite images and aerial recordings. These research activities in the field of remote sensing and photogrammetry focus on different applications with satellite images and aerial recordings from different types of moving platforms. The images (low, high or very high resolution, mono or stereo, multispectral or hyperspectral,...) are processed and orthorectified to elaborate a broad range of final products, such as digital elevation models, ortho-photos, 3D visualizations…

For the acquisition of terrestrial data, our "3D Data Acquisition" cluster is working with and performing research on the whole range of topographical and photogrammetrical instruments (leveling instruments, robotic total stations, digital cameras for terrestrial photogrammetry, different GNSS receivers, terrestrial laser scanners, mobile mapping,...).

Our research group has also its own calibration laboratory, where a collimator and an laser interferometer are installed to perform lens calibrations and calibrations of total stations.

Main research topics in the field of bathymetry (multibeam and singlebeam) are real-time positioning, autonomous underwater vehicles, computational geometry, triangulation algorithms, filtering techniques of the 3D data and interpolation techniques.