T3, Round 4: Map a quarter-kilometer!

Welcome to the Time Trust Trial contest, Round 4 (T3-4)! This round is an aerial imaging task. Here is your assignment: Program your UAV to take photos from an altitude of ~400 feet that you then stitch together to make a single image showing an area of 500mx500m (a quarter square kilometer). Somewhere in that image, a Santa (or replica of a Santa, poster of a Santa, just you wearing a Santa hat, etc) must be seen. NO PHOTOSHOP (ie, the sample above would be disqualified)--you actually need to bring something Santa-ish to the field so your UAV can capture it in its shots (yes, I know it will be very small. Just circle the location in your image so we can enlarge and inspect--don't make us do "Where's Wally"!) This is to prove that the shots aren't actually taken from Google Earth ;-) You can use any path strategy you want: "lawnmower", spiral, concentric circles, etc... For stitching software, I use the free PTGui, but you're welcome to use whatever software you prefer. And for your camera, may I suggest you hack up some cool way to trigger the shutter with our cool ServoSwitch? KML tracks must be provided. Video is not required, but is suggested. We've now switched to a six-week cycle, so the deadline is 12:00 midnight PST on ~~Sunday, January 17, 2010~~ now Monday, January 18th due to the Martin Luther King holiday in the US. The overall winner will be the best quality image, as decided by the judges (based on a combination of resolution, stitch quality and overall coolness--a clever Santa will win you brownie points, and a pretty area is no bad thing [note: snow is lovely, but be warned that it can confuse stitching software]), but everyone who completes the challenge will win a prize. Enjoy!

Well of course actually this is a group attempt to discover evidence of Santa, does he not do practice runs and good behaviour checks beforehand, maybe there will be some tracks in that snow or on a roof. I'm not convinced that you will get a picture of the big man himself but aliens leave crop circles so the man in red must leave something. Half eaten mince pies and bales of hay.

Is that a tradition around the world leaving something for him to eat?? My family always did it. Mince pies and my grandfather used to leave a bale of hay out for Rudolf.

Good luck everybody, DIYdrones need to prove once and for all his existence

You might like to use http://www.noradsanta.org/ closer to the day, that in google earth is amazing and shows just how quickly he must move, my boys love it and so do I ;-).

I know you won't let us down on this task.

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Moderator

Gary Mortimer December 4, 2009 at 12:46am

Brakar I will frown on yet another landing in a tree for this round, unless thats your flying style of course.

Also being closer to The Man in Red you have an advantage, not sure how to handicap you for that.
Dr Mike Black December 4, 2009 at 12:12am

Martin,

LOL.no one likes a Smart a**e LOL...yes i know that.5x5 = 25.....it was stupid oclock when i posted, but im glad to see that NOTHING goes unchecked in here!

Now go stand in the corner for being an un-sufferable 'know it all' LOL..only playing with you.....
Overwatch December 3, 2009 at 11:19pm

Dr Mike Black, just an FYI, quarter of a sq. km is 250 000 m^2, not 500. Good luck!

This great challenge makes me wish my UAV (a quad) was nearing completion around this time :)
Moderator

Gary Mortimer December 3, 2009 at 9:30pm

Well of course actually this is a group attempt to discover evidence of Santa, does he not do practice runs and good behaviour checks beforehand, maybe there will be some tracks in that snow or on a roof. I'm not convinced that you will get a picture of the big man himself but aliens leave crop circles so the man in red must leave something. Half eaten mince pies and bales of hay.

Is that a tradition around the world leaving something for him to eat?? My family always did it. Mince pies and my grandfather used to leave a bale of hay out for Rudolf.

Good luck everybody, DIYdrones need to prove once and for all his existence

You might like to use http://www.noradsanta.org/ closer to the day, that in google earth is amazing and shows just how quickly he must move, my boys love it and so do I ;-).

I know you won't let us down on this task.
Developer

Doug Weibel December 3, 2009 at 8:28pm

Now how will PTGui stitch together pictures of the ground here today? It is all white (covered in snow)!

Of course Santa would be easy to spot - LOL
brakar December 3, 2009 at 3:04pm

Excellent round Chris, this one should be a nice challenge for us all.

brakar
Dr Mike Black December 3, 2009 at 2:26pm

Easy`s...i meant 'Flexis'......my bad...soz....
Dr Mike Black December 3, 2009 at 2:21pm

Now this challange we can do......not sure about the santa outfit...(will pass this to my right hand man here, he will dress up for almost anything (DONT ASK!) he has issues.....lol)

I Never mentioned it but your Ardupilot, in our Big UAV, flew succesfully, smartly and accurately for the first time the other day! Well Done Chaps!!!! 500m2 should nto be an issue.....(be nice to join in, maybe its about time an Ardupilot won your competition) seen plenty of PAP`s and Easy`s win..

Ardupilot deserves a top place, what say you?

Doc.
Curt Filipowski December 3, 2009 at 11:53am

Arg, this is one of the things my wing was designed to do...unfortunately I only recieved my autopilot last night and have many many weeks of tweeking and tuning to get thru first...I'll have to delay my entry closer to T3, Round 38 ;).
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson December 3, 2009 at 11:40am

BTW, PTGui stitches based on feature overlap, not GPS info, so you need to set you camera to shoot fast enough to get lots of overlap.

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