Photogrammetry is a process by which large numbers of still photographs, of an object or environment, can be combined to create a precise and navigable 3D model. Photogrammetry software computes distances within a 2D image by a process of triangulation, taking into consideration metadata such as the focal length of the lens of the camera that captured the image.

Specific technical software then arranges every pixel from multiple overlapping images in 3D space, creating a ‘point cloud’ made of often hundreds of millions of individual pixels, or ‘points’. This point cloud can be anchored to its location in the real world, through a process known as ‘ground truthing’.