Aviation and photography have revolutionized detailed mapping of features visible from the air. An aerial photograph, however, is not a map. In the case of the House of Parliament and Westminster Bridge, London, for example, the tops of the towers would coincide with the corners of the foundations when mapped. In an aerial photograph, however, they would not, being displaced radially from the centre. An important property of vertical aerial photographs is that angles are correctly represented at their centres, but only there. Similar distortions are present in photographs of hilly ground. This problem may be dealt with in two principal ways, depending on the relative scales of the map and the photographs and on whether contours are required on the map. The older method, adequate for planimetric maps at scales smaller than the photographs, was used extensively during and after World War II to map large areas of desert and thinly populated country; mountainous areas could be sketched in, but the relief was not accurately shown.

As in ground survey, a framework of identified points is necessary before detailed mapping can be carried out from the air. The photographs are ordinarily taken by a vertically aligned camera in a series of strips (see Figure 1) in which each picture overlaps about 60 percent of the preceding one; adjacent strips overlap only slightly. The overlaps make it possible to assemble a low-order framework or control system based on small, recognizable features that appear in more than one photograph. In the simplest form of this procedure each photograph is replaced by a transparent template on which rays are drawn (or slots are cut) from the centre of the picture to the selected features. The angles between these rays or slots are correct, and slotted templates can be fitted together by inserting studs, which represent the features, into the appropriate slots and sliding the templates so that each stud engages the slots in all the pictures showing the corresponding feature. This operation ensures that the centres of the pictures and the selected features are in the correct relationship. The array of overlapping photographs can be expanded or contracted by sliding them about on the work surface as long as the studs remain engaged in the slots, so the assemblage can be positioned, oriented, and scaled by fitting it to at least two—preferably several—ground-control points identified on different photographs.

This technique may be extended by using two additional cameras, one on each side, aimed at right angles to the line of flight and 30 degrees below the horizontal. The photographs taken by the side cameras overlap those taken by the vertical one and also include the horizon; the effect is to widen the strip of ground covered and thus to reduce the amount of flying required. Points in the backgrounds of the oblique photographs can be incorporated in the overlapping array as before to tie the adjacent flight paths together. Photography from high-flying jet aircraft and satellites has rendered this technique obsolete, but before those advances took place it greatly facilitated the mapping of underdeveloped areas.

For the production of maps with accurate contours at scales five or six times that of the photographs, a more sophisticated approach is necessary. The ground-survey effort must be expanded to provide the heights as well as the positions of all the features employed to establish the framework.

In this technique the details within each segment of the map are based not on individual photographs but on the overlap between two successive ones in the same strip, proceeding from the positions and heights of features in the corners of each area. A three-dimensional model can be created by viewing each pair of consecutive photographs in a stereoscope; by manipulation of a specially designed plotting instrument, the overlapping area can be correctly positioned, scaled, and oriented, and elevations of points within it can be derived from those of the four corner points. These photogrammetric plotting instruments can take several forms. In projection instruments the photographs are projected onto a table in different colours so that, through spectacles with lenses of complementary colours, each eye sees only one image, and the operator visualizes a three-dimensional model of the ground. A table or platen, with a lighted spot in the middle, can be moved around the model and raised or lowered so that the spot appears to touch the ground while the operator scans any feature, even if it is located on a steep hillside. A pencil directly beneath the spot then plots the exact shape and position of the feature on the map. For contouring the platen is fixed at the selected height (at a scale adjusted to that of the model), and the spot is permitted to touch the model surface wherever it will; the pencil then draws the contour.

With more complex mechanical devices, rays of light reaching the aircraft taking the two photographs are represented by rods meeting at a point that represents the position of the feature of the model being viewed. With a complicated system of prisms and lenses the operator, as with projection instruments, sees a spot that can be moved anywhere in the overlap and up or down to touch the model surface, as described above. A mechanical or electronic system moves a pencil into the corresponding position on a plotting table to which the map manuscript is fixed.

With computerized analytic instruments the mechanical operation is limited to measuring coordinates on the two photographs, and the conversion to a three-dimensional model is performed entirely by the computer. It is possible with the most precise plotting instruments of either type to draw a map at four to six times the scale of the photographs and to plot contours accurately at a vertical interval of about one one-thousandth of the height from which the photographs were taken. With such analytic instruments the record can be stored in digital as well as graphic form to be plotted later at any convenient scale.

All these methods produce a line or drawn map; some of them also create a data file on disk or tape, containing the coordinates of all the lines and other features on the map. On the other hand, aerial photographs can be combined and printed directly to form a photomap. For flat areas this operation requires simply cutting and pasting the photographs together into a mosaic. For greater accuracy the centres of the photographs may be aligned by the use of slotted templates as described above to produce a photomap called a controlled mosaic.

A much more precise technique is based on the use of an orthophotoscope. With this device, overlapping photographs are employed just as in the stereoscopic plotter already described, but the instrument, rather than the manual tracing of the features and contours, scans the overlap and produces an orthophotograph by dividing the area into small sections, each of which is correctly scaled. This procedure is best applied to areas of low relief without tall buildings; the resulting maps can then be substituted for line maps in rural areas where they are particularly useful in planning resettlement in agricultural projects. Because no fair drawing is required, the final printed map can be produced much more quickly and cheaply than would otherwise be possible.