The development of photogrammetry in World War 1

Abstract

The particular conditions of World War 1 meant that the rival armies needed to develop ways of using aerial photography to map positions behind enemy lines that could not be mapped by observations on the ground. The armies that went to war in 1914 although equipped with aeroplanes had not thought to equip their crews with cameras but the need for cameras was quickly realised. On the Western Front, where reasonable quality French and good quality Belgian mapping was readily available, the main task was map revision. This involved plotting the positions of enemy lines and infrastructure to allow them to be targeted by artillery. In the Middle East the lack of suitable existing mapping, meant that techniques needed to be developed to produce topographic mapping from the aerial photography. The situation of the Eastern Front was somewhat mixed, with good Russian and Habsburg mapping of some areas, while other areas were poorly mapped. The techniques that were developed to provide appropriate mapping from aerial photography in the different circumstances and the problems that needed to be overcome are discussed in the paper.

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