The main aim of the Low Cost Mobile Mapping System project is to develop a low cost operational System devoted to the acquisition of geographical data. The system should allow to rapidly cover large areas with minimal requirements (in terms of installation and skills) to allow an effective usage in emergency situations.

The system, jointly developed with the Land, Environment and Geo-Engineering Department (DITAG) of the Politecnico di Torino, at the moment allows to acquire movies and single georeferenced frames by means of a transportable device easily installable (or adaptable) to every type of vehicles.

The flashing includes the 4 webcams and a GPS receiver.

The device is composed by four webcams, with a total field of view of about 180 degrees, and one GPS receiver that allows to record the webcam position with a high frequency. The number of the webcams and their orientation can be easily customized according to the acquisition needs (vehicle type, survey requirements, etc.).

The instruments have been integrated in a compact device, similar to a flashing, easily installable on the top of a vehicle by means of a magnetic base or a suction holder. The direct link with a laptop allows to monitor and record the acquisitions and to tag points of interest and related metatada in real time.

The research is focused on the post-processing stage, specifically on the development of customized GIS software plug-ins aimed at making easier and quicker the visual interpretation of the data (both imagery and GPS tracks) to identify the features of interest. Furthermore Politecnico di Torino is developing, implementing and testing an advanced post-processing software based on photogrammetric techniques allowing to automatically calculate, with high relative accuracy, the 3-D coordinates (in a known reference system) of every feature of interest displayed in the acquired frames.