Hello fellow UAVers,
dronemapper.com
My UAV partner (Ross) and I have been working on a project that we'd love to get some feedback and additional ideas for. Our intention is to allow free access to this web based tool and also a really cheap subscription model per month (think $4 range) to support hosting costs and the large amount of cpu processing power needed to generate maps. The free users will get all the same features but lower resolution imagery and possibly less accurate georeferenced tiles/tiffs/added watermarks to support the site. No ads.
Our software and backend servers use tons of different open source packages to complete the process of georeferencing and building image mosaics. We are also trying to offer an "easy to use" UI to view each flight and all the associated data. We really hope you enjoy our ideas! We are planning to open the site up to beta users by request in a month or so. Please keep an eye out for more information on that.
We've been having some problems getting our own flight systems up and running, ranging from a bad MUX on an APM 1 (thanks for fixing!), APM2 delays, and code issues with the Tri-Copter platform. This has prevented us from getting amazing imagery on our own at this point. :( Lucky, the awesome guys at Petryx UAV posted a ton of sample imagery which is so cool! Pteryx FTP Sample Imagery
We can't wait to open the site to beta users so you can test your own imagery and flight paths, hopefully at that point we will have our own platform up and running!
So, here we go -- some screenshots and comments:
Upload your flight imagery and Ardulog/GPX/Petryx/CSV log file.
Imagery and Flight Processing Queue
Imagery Dashboard w/ Flight Path, GeoTIFF served via Geoserver, Blended and Georeferenced Mosaics
Same as above, different flight.
Georeferenced View w/ Google Earth API - Shows Tiles, Flight Path
Second Part of Georefenced View - Shows GeoTiff Mosaic Preview and Metadata
Third Part of Georeferenced View - Shows Additional Maps
Blended Mosaic
Our Tricopter platform. Quadcopter and also Skywalker platforms we've been testing!
Quadcopter w/ IR Powershot a490 Camera
We would love to hear some questions and comments!
Thanks for reading and thanks for your support,
DM Team (JP and Ross)
Comments
Thanks Balazs, I have her deployed on the EC2 cloud. I just setup a mosaic only mode today so you can add just imagery to get a mosaic output. No flight logs required. Best,
JP
JP, really looking forward to beta testing and helping if I can. You may want to look at a cloud based hosting company like Media Temple - there's a chance you can get a sponsorship deal going with them. I think this service will become very popular, and due to its very open nature, Media Temple may be interested in helping host it at a reduced or sponsored rate.
Talk soon,
B
A couple new screenshots. Added a reports feature with extensive information on your flight, with PDF download/export. Also, doing some experimentation on the DEMS and added a color ramp display. In the future you can customize this and reprocess your imagery!
Private beta ready for mid-late March.. ( depending on the snow conditions. :D )
DEMs
Basic PDF Flight / Processing Report
Reports Detail Page 1
Enjoy!
Thanks Rigel, I'll definitely do that. :)
Awesome, let me know when you're ready to receive images.
Hey everyone, thanks for all of offers of support and help testing! We've got a ton of interest. :)
We are working away on the site and should definitely have a usable service up around mid-march. :D We fully expect there to be plenty of bugs and interesting issues to deal with but things are looking pretty good so far. I hope as technology, our learning curve and sensors improve so will the site. I want to give any beta users a lifetime membership.
Pteryx workflow is pretty solid! Yay. I just received my APM2 today and Ross is getting some tiles with his Tricopter/Gimbal/APM1 which is helping us test the ArduPilot log workflow. I can't wait to get my quad flying! Many thanks again to Pteryx and Mavinci for some sample imagery. So helpful during this process. I've attached a few new screenshots, some are from the tricopter with Arducopter. Thanks
First Tiles From Tripcopter (maybe experiencing compass jump in the logs. Ross has details)
Flight Path w/ Imagery Matches as Points (can't see as really straight flight) - Elevation Profile of Image Coverage Flight -- Imagery Coverage Bounding Box -- Home Point
Pilot Profile (free and hobby users -- this service will be free and also have tiers to help with computing and bandwidth costs)
Sweet new Pteryx Flight using giscat log export!
@Tim Brown Thanks for the ideas Tim. I like that model too, it has crossed our mind and we'll will put some more thought into it. The only thing we know for sure is our goal to offer this sort of service to hobby pilots at a cheap price. (and free for lower resolution, watermarked imagery). We are exploring the best options for hosting a service like this and the it does require a lot of disk/cpu. :)
I have definitely been reading a lot of posts on publiclaboratory.org, I actually just followed the guide to build an IR Canon Powershot A490. :D Awesome site!!
This looks great! We're interested in developing low cost uav solutions for scientists to monitor their field sites and make it easier to do repeat aerial surveys of remote research areas. The UAVs are getting cheap but good image stitching software is still in the $10K range so your services would be great.
We'd love to be beta testers too!
One potential revenue model would be to charge for anyone who doesn't want their data to be public and open source - i.e. anything uploaded is part of the public commons unless you have a paid account. I like this model because it encourages things to be in the public sphere.
Are you familiar with these guys? http://publiclaboratory.org/
@Rigel, will do. My APM 2 just shipped. Thanks guys!
@JP Yes I'm using APM1 and currently flying ArduPlane 2.27. As a note, any file derived from the on board log, such as GPX or TXT, will contain the same timing errors. It is a bug I've mentioned in other posts, but unfortunately it hasn't been solved yet. I agree that using true GPS timestamps would be a lot nicer. Let me know how the timing pans out on APM2.
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