Mapping with E382 and DroneMapper

I just wanted to share a mapping mission I ran last week with the E382 from Event 38 (my company) and processed with DroneMapper.com.

The reason these results are somewhat noteworthy is the amount of time it took to make this. I pulled up to the flying field, setup the plane in maybe 5 or 6 minutes. I hand launched the plane, flew around manually for exactly 5 minutes, taking 110 pictures in that time. Brought it in for a quick landing in some bushes then I packed up and went home. At home I uploaded the images straight to DroneMapper without even reviewing them. A few hours later, DM came back with really awesome results. All of this took just a few minutes of my time not counting the drive to and from the field.

My setup on the E382 is as follows:

- Skywalker 168cm Airframe

- APM 2.0 with ArduPlane 2.4

- 3DR Telemetry Radios 915MHz

- Canon Powershot SX230 HS with CHDK

The camera is really what made this so quick.. with built in GPS all the images are geotagged automatically as they're taken. This mission was actually done to see if it could keep a GPS lock for the entire flight which it did. Having the images geotagged and processing them with DroneMapper returns files that can be analyzed (as in the image above) for things like the elevation profile of any path, the length of a path, the area of a field and so on. There are nice tutorials on how to get started with that in the DroneMapper FAQ.

Measuring the length of a trail

Measuring the area of low lying vegetation

Extracting the coordinates of a point of interest

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Comments

Jeff Taylor July 16, 2012 at 9:26pm

Yes I've been down that road before.. I was also using CHDK at that time but I was sending pulses from APM to CHDK to tell ti when to take a picture. It ended up being too messy in the plane, too much work to set up and it needed a ground script aftwards to match up when the pulses were sent to the picture that was subsequently taken. This method is much simpler and in the future more and more and more cameras will have a GPS option.

I have no idea why but almost no cameras have an intervalometer feature. Seems so easy to include, I'm not sure why almost no companies add it.
ggtronic July 16, 2012 at 9:05pm

subscribe... thanks to share ! i'm having a bad time to find a camera that work well with USB trigger gadget...wanted to use a new 16pmx model... but canon CHDK doesnt seem to support them... actually trying to hack a NIKON s9300...
Cala July 16, 2012 at 4:35pm

Thanks
Jeff Taylor July 16, 2012 at 4:23pm

Very simply, I just rest the camera in the bottom of the airframe and cut a hole for the lens. I use CHDK to shut down the camera and retract the lens before landing (depending on what kind of terrain I'm landing on).
Cala July 16, 2012 at 4:12pm

Nice work Jeff, How you mount your camera?
Jeff Taylor July 16, 2012 at 3:58pm

Don't worry JP, the thread is about both! I'm pleased with the results so far and I am thankful for your help in analyzing the results, they're helping me improve the platform.
JP July 16, 2012 at 3:46pm

@toby I don't want to hijack Jeff's thread but it is based on area and GSD. We often just process your job for free if we are bored and server is free.

I have to say that after viewing almost 10k of images and bunches of ortho/dems.. the E382 is doing an amazing job for the price. Right up with the big boys! Congrats Jeff.
Toby Mills July 16, 2012 at 3:18pm

What is the dronemapper pricing like for doing something like this?
JP July 16, 2012 at 2:34pm

Nice write up and great work on the E382 flight platform! Mapping is too fun..

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