With the activation of the "Course of photogrammetric techniques applied to architecture and urban planning", at the Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning of the Faculty of Engineering, the students used the laboratory of the "Stereophotogrammetric Section for the survey of monuments and urban environments ", located at the same Institute.
The first photogrammetric tools were a Wild P30 phototeodolite and a universal restorer WILD A2, with which the elevations of the elevations of the castles of Conversano (BA), Gioia del Colle (BA) and Bari were made and the relief of the "elevation" of the historic center of Ostuni (BR), carried out in 1973, which represents one of the first symptoms of the awareness of the inadequacy of the simple planimetric representation for the purpose of representing an urban center.

In 1978, with the arrival of new equipment, in particular a Wild C120 stereometric chamber for shooting and a Wild A40 analog restitutor for restitution, the problem of restitution was added to the problem of the gap between recovery times and those of return. This new situation was denounced in the introductory report of the first conference of architectural photogrammetry, held in Bari in 1978. An exhibition was organized in parallel with the conference, introduced by a series of photographs with didactic captions.

  We are in the era when photogrammetry seemed to offer the magical solution for the survey of architecture. After the first two international courses of architectural photogrammetry, organized in Zurich (1972) and Heergrugg (1975), refresher courses for middle school teachers took place in Italy, with the attempt to interest photogrammetry in drawing teachers .
From 12 to 18 June 1979, the laboratories participated in the "neighborhood laboratory" organized by Renzo Piano in Otranto (LE).

  The "double chamber", as the stereometric chamber was called, became a popular instrument and subjected to numerous tests, just mention the trulli project, the major campaign of the Benedictine settlements in Puglia, the reliefs from the floating platform in Venice and the intervention in Basilicata, of the photogrammetric unit of the Bari traffic police, following the 1980 earthquake, which imposed the choice of a repetitive method of relief.
In all these years, research has always been accompanied by seminars and conferences, up to the 1991 conference, which gave a decisive turning point to research. In the presentation of the proceedings of this conference, Archbishop Pietro Amato says:
"Protection is not for the few. It belongs to the dignity of man and nobody can delegate it. It is important that we teach it and give ourselves the tools. The rest is the story that will tell about our culture and our spirituality".
In 1992 the first computers arrived in the laboratory and the survey became multimedia, also thanks to the Hypercard program, which was offered for free together with every Macintosh computer. The transition to digital photogrammetry was a foregone conclusion and the Stereofot program, officially presented at the international conference in 1993, began to take shape.
The 1996 conference marked the definitive transition to digital photogrammetry: the Internet now allowed for real-time verification and the students themselves began to exhibit their work online..