These are two anaglyph formatted vertical aerial photos of Privateers Island, West Dover, Nova Scotia. The photos were taken on March 28, 2012 during an EasyStar model airplane flight over the island. Red / Cyan 3D glasses are required to view the images.
This is a stereoscopic 3D anaglyph image of the southern tip of Privateers Island.
This is a stereoscopic 3D anaglyph image of the forest cleanup on Privateers Island after major hurricane damage.
While exploring Privateer's Island the EasyStar plane also did a pass over the East Dover Barrens.
This is a concept design for a handheld air traffic control system for model airplanes. This project is designed to allow a small handheld device to track the flight path of multiple model airplanes at a flying field. The mikroATC firmware can display either a vector map or aerial mosaic image tiles of the flying site. You can navigate the map view using the controlpad buttons.
In the YouTube video the flight pattern shown was created by the built-in mikroATC simulator routine.
The display code supports tracking multiple model airplanes at the same time. Each model airplane that is tracked has its own unique ID, display name, and telemetry struct data. This demo is powered by a MikroElektronika MMB board with a Microchip dsPic33 P33FJ256GP710A MCU and the mikromedia gaming shield.
The source code is not available for download as it is still in development.
I am currently developing the protocols for the wireless telemetry link using mikroC Pro for dsPIC. I still haven't decided on the final data modem to use for the project. It doesn't help that there seems to be a new and exciting RF modem coming to market every day!
I am reusing a lot of source code for this project from several previous experiments I did on creating a Mac based FPV / UAV Ground Station.
Here I'm using a mikromeda board to test the prototype GUI for mikroATC.
This is a photo of mikroATC using an aerial photomosaic image as the map background.
This is the vector graphics version of the map display.
Since February 2009 I have written up 222 blog posts on AndrewHazelden.com covering topics I am enthusiastic about. I thought it would be an interesting change for my readers to start a new section where I interview people who inspire me with their creative ideas and use of cutting edge technology.
Since I have a passion for model aviation and aerial photography my first guest is Jon-Pierre Stoermer. Jon-Pierre is the creative force behind Dronemapper a new on-demand SaaS software-as-a-service offering for the UAV Industry. I would like to thank Jon-Pierre for being willing to let me interview him about the Dronemapper project even though it is still in Beta.
Dronemapper.com provides a set of mapping tools for UAV Pilots.
I discovered the Dronemapper website while I was looking for an easy way to extract 3D terrain models from aerial images. I have had a chance to be in the Dronemapper beta program since March 2012 and I and have enjoyed using the innovative cloud based service.
Dronemapper works with any computer that has high-speed internet access and a web browser. You start by uploading your aerial images and flight log using your browser. Then the Dronemapper system automatically processes the data and sends you an email to let you know when your imagery is ready.
Uploading Images to Dronemapper
Dronemapper can create extraordinarily detailed 3D terrain reconstructions from a set of aerial photos. This image is a textured 3D point cloud with over 19.4 million vertices.
This is a photo of me holding a ready-to-launch EasyStar model airplane. The plane is fully loaded with camera gear and has a total weight of 1.3kg.
On March 21, 2012 my brother and I flew our model EasyStar airplane over Privateers Island in West Dover, Nova Scotia. The plane carried a Canon PowerShot SD780IS digital camera, a Garmin eTrex Legend GPS, and a wireless video camera.
We launched several flights that day starting around 11am in the morning. This is the first year that I can remember wearing a t-shirt and getting a sunburn in March!
During the vertical aerial photo flight we took several hundred photos. The main thing we noticed when we reviewed the aerial photos of Privateers Island was evidence of significant hurricane damage in the forest. There are large areas in the forest canopy that are now open clearings with a lot of fallen trees.
A vertical aerial photo of the launch site.
The hurricane damage is really visible on the southern part of Privateers Island.
Here is a 1km long aerial mosaic image of Poly Cove in West Dover, Nova Scotia.
This morning I created a large aerial mosaic image of Polly Cove, West Dover, Nova Scotia. The mosaic image was stitched in Microsoft ICE from 25 aerial photos taken on Feb 14, 2012. The mosaic image covers a 1 km distance from Highway 333 to the islands off Polly Cove.
The photos were shot with an EasyStar Model airplane using a Canon PowerShot SD780IS camera and CHDK. I used the CHDK countdown intervalometer script to trigger the photos every 2 seconds with a 1/1500 sec shutter speed override.
I started in Microsoft ICE by creating a few smaller mosaic images using the Planar Motion 1 stitch mode and then merged the smaller mosaic's together in a final stitching pass. The full resolution version of the mosaic was 22,114 x 10,549 pixels (233 megapixels).
You can download a scaled down 3.5 megabyte 8Kx4K version of the mosaic image here: super_polly_cove_mosaic.jpg (Right click on the link and select Save Link As...)
Here is a stitched mosaic in Microsoft ICE from 9 photos.
The easiest way to stitch the big aerial photo mosaic was by merging together 7 smaller mosaics.
This weekend I started exploring aerial photogrammetry using Bundler and Meshlab. The first few Google searches I did while researching aerial photogrammetry discussed KAP (Kite Aerial Photography) enthusiasts who have used free photogrammetry tools like Microsoft PhotoSynth and Synth Export or the open source program Bundler (SfM) to create surveys of archeological sites.
My goal was to use aerial photos my brother & I captured with our EasyStar model airplane to create DEMs (digital elevation models) of our local scenery. The aerial photos I used to test Bundler were taken at a 400 foot altitude with a model airplane flying at 35 kilometers per hour. I used a Canon Powershot SD780IS camera with CHDK and the countdown intervalometer script to trigger the photos.
After a few hours of tinkering with software, reading manuals, and google searching I successfully created and textured my first DEM (digital elevation model).
This is a screenshot in Autodesk Maya of the first photogrammetry model I created using Bundler, and Meshlab.
Sample Bundler Aerial Images
A set of three vertical aerial photos taken with an EasyStar
I have included a ZIP archive with the three aerial photos from this tutorial. You can use these images to follow along with your copy of the Bundler photogrammetry software.
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