Photogrammetric monitoring of an artificially generated landslide

According to pre-planned schedules, a series of two artificial rainfall events were applied to a forested slope in Ruedlingen, northern Switzerland. The experiments were conducted in autumn 2008 and spring 2009, the second of which resulted in mobilising about 130 m3 of debris. Both experiments were monitored by a photogrammetric camera network in order to quantify spatial and temporal changes. A 4-camera arrangement was used for the image acquisition. The cameras operated at a data acquisition rate of circa 8 frames per second (fps). Image measurements were made using the Least Squares image matching method, which was implemented in an in-house developed software package (BAAP) to compute 3D coordinates of the target points. The surface deformation was quantified by tracking the small (ping-pong and tennis) balls pegged into the ground. The average 3D point-positioning precision of ±1.6 cm was achieved in the first experiment and ±1.8 cm in the second experiment.