Stereoscopic Analysis of Photographs Taken by NIMBUS II APT System (II)

An Improvement in the Method of the Stereoscopic Analysis

Abstract

In stereoscopic photogrammetry of the APT satellite pictures, the APT pictures with distortion were measured stereoscopically without optical rectification. The absolute heights of cloud tops were determined by deducting the errors caused by the distortion of the photographs, which were previously calculated. Thus the distribution of clouds between the earth surface and a 12.5km level over the Hokkaido Island and its surroundings was analyzed at every 2.5km height which was the maximum accuracy of the resolution of the photograph.
By use of this method, it was shown that the analysis of the three dimensional structure of cloud patterns were possible and moreover, the orographic clouds over the land, which were difficult to distinguish in individual photographs were readily distinguished.