What is Photogrammetry?

 The development of automotive technology quickly paves the way for innovations in production. SEAT, one of the companies that work hard on this subject, can make precise measurements in production by using photogrammetry in automotive.

What is Photogrammetry? The origin of the word photogrammetry has entered from ancient Greek and means the possibility of drawing with the help of light. Today, it means the technique of measuring objects and the metric interpretation of image data through photographs. What is Photogrammetry in Automotive? In the automotive field, Photogrammetry is a non-contact optical measurement technology that allows us to capture millions of points of an object through photographs, marking the depth and thickness of even the smallest area," said Pedro Vallejo, Head of SEAT Measurement Technology and Meisterbock Division. Stating that they can see all of the vehicle's interior and exterior geometry lines in the images, Paco Triguero also used the sentences "This way, we guarantee that any change is instantly detected." What Uses Photogrammetry in Automotive? Close to 210 million analyzes The body part of a car is a collection of parts assembled in different ways. Therefore, the measurements need to be precise and precise. Photogrammetry provides exactly that. “In total, the machines take between 200 and 300 photographs per assembly and 1,000 photographs of the entire chassis of the car, which is equivalent to measuring seven million points per assembly and 98 million points for the entire chassis,” explains Paco. That means 9,000 photos and up to 210 million analysis points per day. Time-saving technology Optical technology shortens measurement time by 90 percent compared to traditional tactile measurements. “We could measure three parts in the past, now we measure 30 per day,” Paco says. This has allowed us to radically change the way we work for the last 20 or 30 years. We have trained employees in higher quality techniques. “We have multiplied our knowledge to ensure that the customer receives the best possible car.” This technique is currently being applied on the assembly line of SEAT Leon and CUPRA Formentor. A technological milestone The use of photogrammetry in serial measurement, adapted by SEAT, is an industry-leading and innovative process. It represents an improvement in on-line measurement efficiency in terms of speed, precision and connectivity. “We are the first manufacturer to introduce large-scale, seamless, non-contact automatic measurement, and we have succeeded in ensuring that a car that comes off the production line maintains the same level as a perfect prototype throughout the life of the series,” emphasizes Pedro. designing the future Thanks to tools such as Big Data and Data Science, a large amount of information obtained with the help of photogrammetry will now be used to detect situations that may be encountered in production in the future before they occur. “We keep all this data for a machine learning algorithm to analyze how often any deviations occur,” Pedro said. “We are currently able to locate and respond to deviations, but in the future the program will be proactive: It will analyze how often deviations occur and make predictions to recalibrate the machine that caused the deviation.”