Aerial image generating apparatus, aerial image generating method, and storage medium having aerial image generating program stored therein

Abstract

An apparatus and method generating a road image including no features such as trees and tunnels hiding or covering a road surface. A mobile measuring apparatus installed in a vehicle may acquire a distance and orientation point cloud, a camera image, GPS observation information, a gyro measurement value, and an odometer measurement value, while moving in a target area. The position and attitude localizing apparatus may localize the position and attitude of the vehicle based on the GPS observation information, the gyro measurement value and the odometer measurement value. The point cloud generating apparatus may generate a point cloud based on the camera image, the distance and orientation point cloud, and a position and attitude localized value. The point cloud orthoimage generating apparatus may extract points close to a road surface exclusively from the point cloud by removing points higher than the road surface, orthographically project each extracted point onto a horizontal plane, and generate a point cloud orthoimage. The point cloud orthoimage may show the road surface including no features covering or hiding the road surface.