The Value of Mapping Vertical Obstructions
We have been locating, documenting, and mapping vertical obstructions for one of our many customers. As a retired US Air Force C-130 Navigator I flew low level missions at 300 feet almost every day. I know the value of knowing where your vertical obstructions are located before you go fly. We recently worked on an area with an incredible amount of new obstructions. The red dots on the above screenshot represent powerline pylons and the blue dots represent light standards either along roads or within athletic areas. Every dot on the map represents an obstacle that is taller than 50 feet. Most are between 50 and 100 feet, but there are occasional vertical obstructions that reach up to 1,000 feet or more. Those could ruin your fun day of flying whether you are in a C-130 or a Cessna 172. We use a VerticalGeo proprietary process to determine the location and height of each vertical obstruction, increasing the accuracy and quality of the data we create. For safety of flight reasons it is imperative to know where these obstacles are. The work we do eventually makes it into FAA and DoD flight charts to help promote safety of flight.
VerticalGeo Exhibiting at SAME Industry Day
VerticalGeo exhibited at the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Industry Day in O'Fallon, Illinois on April 27. We met a lot of great military and civilian engineers and were fortunate enough to listen to the local United States Army Corps of Engineers Districts present their project forecasts for the near future. It was a very informative day with an opportunity to meet a lot of new people and see some old friends. We had so many people come up to our booth and talk about the UASs we had on display. We had a great time.
Shafer Metro East Airport Photography
Shafer Field 20170419
We started a wonderful science project yesterday. We took one of our drones (our DJI Mavic) over to Shafer Metro East Airport to test the capability of the drone and its ability to integrate with our photo processing software (Drone Deploy). We flew the Mavic for about an hour on a search pattern over Shafer Field, covering every inch of the airport. We ended up collecting about 1200 photos. Drone Deploy's maximum upload is 999 photos per map, so we edited out the ones we didn't think we needed and uploaded the 999 we kept. It took about 2 hours to upload the photos and then Drone Deploy worked for about 6 hours to process them in the cloud into a seamless photo mosaic. The Mavic is a very impressive small drone. It folds up to about the size of a small shoebox, and the quality of the photos are amazing. The resolution of the photo is approximately 1" per pixel. The colors are very nice and the photo looks fantastic. For all of our friends in California, yes, we have had a lot of rain the last couple of weeks and things are really this green.Here is a sample of the photos we took yesterday. Below the photo is a link that will take you to an interactive web-based map of the airfield where you can zoom in and out and pan around the photo.The downside of the photo is that it is not all that accurate. It is definitely not accurate enough to use for survey work, which we are trying to accomplish. Most of the points in the photo are within 2 to 5 feet of their actual position on the airfield, but the end of Runway 31 down in the lower right corner of the mosaic is about 20 feet off of its actual position on the ground. We are looking to add Ground Control Points to our future work to ensure more accurate photos, but there is also the possibility of adding Real Time Kinnematic (RTK) correction our larger drone's navigation system so that the camera will know more accurately where it is taking the photos from and helping the system to produce more accurate photos. We will have to decide whether we want the convenience of taking our Mavic out to the field with its longer flight time and easier logistics, but have to place ground control points in the field before we fly, or do we go with our more expensive and huge DJI S1000 and add RTK correction. It makes for an easier process, but the S1000 is so much bigger and requires a lot more equipment and logistics to do the same job. It will be interesting to see how we implement this. We have a fantastic science project that we will be working on this summer for now.
Flying the DJI Mavic Pro
We have been flying our DJI Mavic Pro UAS for a month and we really love it. The video is very nice and clear and the still photos are wonderful. Included in this post is a video we took at O'Fallon's St Ellen Mine Park last month. We are still learning how to use the Mavic, but it is an incredible UAS. This UAS is very revolutionary in its workflow and integrated systems.
VerticalGeo at the Missouri GIS Conference
Last week we exhibited at the Missouri GIS Conference. We brought our large DJI S1000 Spreadwings UAS with the FLIR Thermal Camera attached to show conference attendees what you can learn from thermal imagery. We had a great time at the conference and met lots of wonderful people. We will see you again next time!
Surveying and Mapping with Fixed Wing UAS: A Fly-Off Between Leading UAS Providers
I just came across a great White Paper by Black Swift Technology that compares their Swift Trainer Fixed Wing UAS with the Sensefly Ecobee and the Trimble UX5. Of course, it shows how well the Swift Trainer does compared to the others. Shocker that their study shows it out pereforms the rest! If you are interested in Fixed Wing UAS Technology you should read the comparison.Here is a link to the White Paper: Surveying and Mapping with Fixed Wing UAS: A Fly-Off Between Leading UAS Providers
Using ArcGIS Online as Part of a Data Collection Workflow
Bethany Marshall is speaking about using ArcGIS Online in our workflow during a Tree Survey we recently completed at the next American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Heartland Region Technical Meeting. Here is a copy of the ASPRS Flyer. So proud of her!
Cleaning LiDAR Tiles: Tug and Barge
Tug and Barge near New Madrid, Missouri
Cleaning more LiDAR tiles today. This one includes a Tug and Barge combination that I found in the middle of the Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri. No one will ever know it was there when I get done with the tile. The top view is a cross section elevation and shows what the elevations look like from the side. The bottom view is an overhead look at the Tug and Barge.
International Year of Light
Thanks to our friend Brittany K. L. Mabry for putting together a great article on the International Year of Light for LiDAR News. Expect to hear lots of information regarding the use of LiDAR and other light-based technology over the next year. Here is a link to the article:http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/11124/136/
New LiDAR Project
Half way done tonight with our 5 week LiDAR classification/cleanup project for the Arkansas Department of Fish and Wildlife. The screenshot below is a 1 mile by 1 mile tile that includes over 8 million points. Airborne LiDAR uses an aircraft equipped with a laser scanner to image the earth's surface. It doesn't take color pictures, but takes a snapshot of the earth's elevation. So the below tile includes a creek running through a culvert under a road. The creek is the lowest elevation and is represented by a magenta color. The road is the highest elevation and is represented by a green color. I enjoy working with LiDAR and the tools you can produce from the data. It just takes forever to process, classify, and clean up.
Using Terrestrial LiDAR for Cultural Heritage Documentation
In July VerticalGeo hosted the ASPRS Heartland Region's monthly Technical Presentation. Brittany Mabry, a graduate student from the University of Arkansas' Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST), presented on "Using Terrestrial LiDAR for Cultural Heritage Documentation." It was a fascinating presentation that highlighted how Brittany, and the CAST team has used, and taught others to use, Terrestrial LiDAR to digitally capture 3-D imagery of cultural heritage resources around the globe. This is wonderful technology that will allow us to capture and preserve in 3-D those historic places that define our world. Here is Brittany's presentation:
US National Map Corps
Last week I attended a web-based presentation by USGS on the National Map Corps. I don't know if you are familiar with USGS's National Map or not, but it is a great resource for finding and downloading information. I had not heard of the USGS National Map Corps before, so this was good news to me.USGS has adopted the same editing environment for the National Map Corps that OpenStreetMap has used for a few years (Potlatch). It works well, is simple to use, and they use it to update a few features for the US Topo Map. The features you can currently edit across the US are: schools, fire, police, and EMS locations, state capitals, and cemeteries. Not a lot of features to update, but it is nice to see USGS opening up to crowd sourcing to keep features current and accurate. The updates you make on the map are reviewed by peers and then added to the new US Topo Map quads. The URL for the USGS National Map Corps Editor is:
Georeferencing Imagery in ArcGIS 10.1 Desktop Tutorial
We have had a lot of people lately ask us how to georeference imagery. So, as long as it is a hot topic, we just posted VerticalGeo's new video tutorial on "Georeferencing Imagery in ArcGIS 10.1 Desktop" on our YouTube Channel. Here it is:http://youtu.be/cAPykiB2YyA
Google's Project Tango
Google's Project Tango is a very interesting project that brings an entirely new focus to crowd sourced mapping data.
Blaise Agüera y Arcas: Augmented-Reality Maps
One more TED post from Blaise Aguera y Arcas on the Augmented Reality Maps work he did while with Microsoft Bing Maps. This application shows a great integration of imagery and mapping.
Dan Berkenstock: The world is one big dataset. Now, how to photograph it ...
Great TED video of Dan Berkenstock talking about the vision of SkyBox and what drives them. This is "game changing" technology that will force the mapping industry to evolve and produce more dynamic and increasingly important capabilities. I am very excited with what SkyBox and the other small satellite companies are doing.
PrecisionAg Mazine's Top 10 Videos for 2013 Includes AutoCopter
Good to see our friend Donald Effren at AutoCopter Corp made the Precision Ag Magazine top 10 Video List. Donald is a great guy and AutoCopter is changing the way growers monitor their production. It is a transformational technology. We were at the InfoAg Conference in Springfield last July when Donald and the AutoCopter Team demonstrated the capabilities of the UAV and it was very impressive. Congrats Donald!
GISCafe's Top Geospatial Predictions for 2014
Thanks to GISCafe for posting their Top Geospatial Predictions for 2014. It is very interesting to see where they believe the industry is headed.