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

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

Kenneth Beason December 19, 2012 at 2:21pm

your not setting focus to infinity, just auto mode? I've tried to set the focus to infinity but it resets after each shot
Jeff Taylor December 19, 2012 at 2:20pm

Nothing special in terms of exposure usually. You can lock it at a faster shutter speed which may help. I think it all comes down to proximity to motor and propeller balance though.

By the way my CHDK script is available for download if you want to reference it or use it. It's just based off of the standard intervalometer script with some modifications by Alan Sanchez and me.
Kenneth Beason December 19, 2012 at 2:16pm

What settings are you using on the sx230? I did my first run with it and nearly all the photos are out of focus.
Jeff Taylor October 6, 2012 at 11:59am

Hey Ken,

You'd better check out the CHDK site for more details on it. There's a command, I think it's just "Shutdown" or "shut_down" or somethign like that where the camera simply powers off and the lens retracts. It can't automatically turn back on once you do that but presumably you'd never want to do that anyway.
Kenneth Beason October 5, 2012 at 7:15pm

Can you provide some input on how your using cdhk to control the camera? How do you control the lens retraction? Thanks, Ken
Jeff Taylor August 15, 2012 at 2:37pm

Sure, it's best to go with a tried & true setup. Let me know if you need any pointers.
Diego O August 15, 2012 at 2:36pm

Jeff, thanks for the quick response.
I was thinking the same configuration as you, "E382". (Airframe Skywalker 168cm)

So I can trust, GPS, Canon SX230 HS works.

thank you very much

Diego
Jeff Taylor August 15, 2012 at 2:09pm

Thanks Diego, yes it's possible to use inside the plane but it depends what your plane is made of. Foam is not a problem but carbon fiber, for example, would block the GPS signal.
Diego O August 15, 2012 at 1:47pm

Hello Jeff
Congratulations, great job.
One question:
How is it possible to use the GPS of the canon SX230 HS if the camera is inside the
plane? The GPS needs to observe the sky, right?.

Regards
Diego

PS: Sorry for my google-English
Cala July 23, 2012 at 2:08pm

What lens do you have in that camera?

of 5

This reply was deleted.