Space resection is one of the fundamental issues in the field of digital photogrammetry and computer vision. Traditional methods based on control points limit the robust automation of the space resection procedure. The primary objective of space resection is to effectively and reliably describe the relationship between object points

the corresponding image points

and the projection center. One of the classical solutions to space resection is based on collinearity equations. A solution based on collinearity equations can represent the rotation matrix in many ways

such as Euler angle

Rodriguesmatrix

quaternion

and dual quaternion. Existing space resection methods are mainly based on point primitives

and do not fully consider the geometric topological relations of space lines; the geometric constraint conditions of the collinearity equation are weak. In this paper

a space resection method based on the Plücker line is presented. Plücker coordinates

a representation of space lines consisting of six parameters

has the advantages of clear geometric meaning

concise formation

and cost-effective computation.In this method

the imaging ray is representedin Plücker coordinates to obtain the Plücker line.Thereafter

on the basis of the screw movement of Plücker lines in space

the object point is obtained on the line and is identified by the image point and projection center. Finally

a collinearity equation based on the imaging ray of Plücker line is established. Therefore

the relationship between the control line in object and their corresponding line in image is established. By using the Plücker coordinates of some control lines in the object and corresponding image lines

the exterior orientation elements can be anti-calculated. The tests performed on aerial images and close-range images with small inclination indicate that the maximum error of the line elements of the exterior orientation elements decreases from 0.88 m to 0.53 m and from 0.06 m to 0.01 m; the maximum error of the angle elements decreases from 0.016 2 radian to 0.002 9 radian and from 0.087 radian to 0.066 radian compared with the traditional Euler method. For images with large inclinations

the space resection method can be used for correct calculations

where as the Euler method cannot. The Euler method has strong dependence on the initial values of attitude elements and line elements. When the initial values are poor

such as a large attitude

the iterative calculation will slowly converge or even not converge. The Plücker line method uses dual quaternion to represent the rotation matrix

which overcomes the aforementioned issues by uniformly representing the attitude and line elements. The Plücker line method avoids the complicated process of solving the attitude and position elements separately

thus significantly improving efficiency.Given the enhanced intensity of the geometry of the model

the method obtains high positioning accuracy and can be used for the positioning of the exterior orientation elements of images with large inclination.