"The beauty of the concept is that the integration is basically only between camera and positioning device, thus keeping navigation and flight control completely ring-fenced from precise positioning. So the point actually is to make precise…"
"Has anyone in this group tried to post-process GPS L1 plus GLONASS raw phase observations? RTKPOST seems to ignore the Glonass observations in the RINEX observation files - even if the GLONASS box in the options dialog is ticked. Any advice wold be…"
"Not much work has been published on this important question. I think that in the not too long future, geo-referencing by means of precise camera exposure positioning will become common practice. The placing and surveying of targets on the ground is…"
"Thanks for the comments and questions.
The V-Map system enables you to very precisely determine positions along a trajectory at a rate of one position every 0.05 seconds. So if your ground speed is 5m/s then you will get a position every 0.05 x 5 =…"
The light weight dual frequency on board GNSS system for sUAVs was first conceptualized in September 2011 when we were once again frustrated by the lack of vision of proprietary VTOL UAS manufacturers whom we could not convince of the advantages of…
"I first saw this very photograph in 2008 on BBC under the headline "Big Brother is Watching Us". In fact it was this photograph that inspired me to engage in UAV technology for mapping, thus starting an exciting new phase in my land surveying…"
Last week, in Naples, Fl., at the AGM of the Florida Surveying and Mapping Society (FSMS) our sister company drone2GIS Inc. showcased a cross section of it's leading edge drone derived geo-spatial products . Have a look at the video here: The…
We recently tested our Structure from Motion (SfM) and Virtual Surveying approach in a road survey scenario. The only significant manual work in the field was to survey ground control and check points. Image acquisition (with a Pixhawk equipped quad…
"For mapping you need a small quad and something like the Samsung NX1000 with a 16mm lens. No need for a gimbal! Since you are in South Africa, consider steadidrone.com equipped with APM2 or Pixhawk. This platform has a wide user base (for support)…"
"Although I am very happy with my Samsung NX1000 - very reliable, light weight and good value for money, some 15000 trouble free shots to date - I changed to the Sony Alpha 6000 because it has live video out - something the NX1000 des not have. See…"
"@Martin: Maximum horizontal error was 0.041m, maximum vertical error was 0.063m. But a point by point comparison is not really the whole story here. Due to the extremely high density of points on the surface - some 1800 of them per square meter -…"
"@Marek: The camera was fixed to the air frame. Hence all images are near nadir. Pitch angles up to 8 degrees, roll values up to 4 degrees - as derived from Agisoft's PhotoScan. The job was controlled by 12 classic ground control points (which were…"
"@me: For this exercise I used the mean of two independent dual frequency GPS post processed solutions (carrier phase ambiguities resolved) to obtain coordinates for the GCPs as well as the check points. You are absolutely right when you say that my…"
Making maps with the help of small UAVs seems to be easy enough. However, when geometric accuracy is critical, how do you determine and state the estimated accuracy of your mapping product? One way is to establish a test bed with a redundancy of…