A system that can rapidly, reliably, remotely and accurately create a photo realistic three-dimensional model of indoor environments is needed for many applications. We present a mobile mapping system that is designed to generate such models automatically from various sensors. Surfaces and features can be accurately mapped from images acquired by a unique configuration of different types of optical range and imaging sensor and dead reckoning positioning device. This configuration guarantees that all the information required to create the three-dimensional model of the environment is included in the collected data. The same general design concept can be used for environments ranging from simple office hallways to long winding underground mine tunnels. It has the following features:

• It uses all data simultaneously in the solution, with dead-reckoning data only as initial approximation and range sensor data as constraints to reduce error propagation.
• It employs sufficient number of cameras, the relationships between which, in one position, are known from a calibration procedure. This will be used as additional constraints.
• It configures the relative position and orientation of the cameras to provide a strong geometric solution thus further reducing error propagation.

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