The basic mathematical principle for bundle adjustment (BA) in photogrammetry is the Gauss-Markov Theorem within the framework of classical statistical inference. In the present article we try to show how Bayesian statistics can be applied in this field, leading to a so-called Bayesian bundle adjustment. The rigorous implementation of the Bayesian approach is derived and a comparison with the traditional BA both in theory and practice is accomplished. The empirical test results show that the

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... esian approach achieves almost the same accuracy as the conventional one, but with advantages as well as some difficulties to be discussed at the end of this paper.