General Integrated ANalytical Triangulation program (GIANT): Version 4.0 user's guide

This user's guide addresses the needs of a photogrammetrist who may w ant to perform analytical aerotriangulation using the new version 4.0 of GIANT (General Integrated ANalytical Triangulation) program. The source of this program is the original GIANT program (Elassal 1976), explained in GIANT User's Guide (Elassal and Malhotra 1987). However, several significant changes and enhancements to the 1987 version were made and documented in the GIANT User's Guide, NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS CGS 4, (Elassal and Malhotra 1991). Further enhancements lead to the present GIANT Version 4.0 and prompted the rewriting of this user's guide. The organization of the material is similar to the one for the previous GIANT Version 3.0 User's Guide. The main text of the GIANT Version 4.0 User's Guide is kept simple by avoiding such details as project planning, preprocessing of measured data, and related considerations. The objective is to give to a photogrammetrist sufficient information to enable him to create data files, execute the program, and interpret the results. No unusual demand is required of the user, although interpretation of results will become more meaningful with experience and knowledge. Appendices from the GIANT Version 3.0 User's Guide have been included in their entirety in this User's Guide for ready reference to some of the important background information related to the GIANT program. For more basic information on aerotriangulation in general, the reader may wish to consult the Analytical Mapping System User's Guide (Engineering Management Series, 1981). Another good reference is the Manual of Photogrammetry (American Society of Photogrammetry 1980) .