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!
We have in-house software with that capability (orthorectification). I'm fairly certain this capability doesn't exist or is limited in it's ability in commercial software implementations.
If anyone knows of a commercial product capable of orthorectification, terrain modeling, image stitching, and GPS coordination, I would love to know!
It looks like you recorded the times when you took photos. If you can map the telemetry to the actual image files, then you should be able to project those images into their approximate positions in Google Earth. Depending on how good your data is the images may only need minor tweaking or overall skews.
Here is the kml track of our flight. The dark blue region corresponds to an altitude of 400 ft. I'll be working with the data later to produce deviation data.
Flight Time: 9 mins Autonomous Time: 6 mins Cruise Speed: 30 knots Track:Flight Track
Imagery Results Total Area Imaged: > (700m X 700m), trimmed to (500m x 500m) Pixel Size: <7 cm/pixel Total Pictures Taken: 91 Total Pictures Used:24 Equivalent Result: Roughly 49 Megapixel Single Image GIS Software: Google Earth
Technique:
1) Used telemetry embedded in each image to approximate its location on the map
2) In-house software removes lens distortion
3) Loaded into Google Earth
4) Manually adjusted key images to background
5) Aligned remaining images to keys and background until area complete
Low-Res Preview Image, click to see slightly larger image
Imagery Submission: Filesize: 62 Mb Usage: This file contains the images and data to recreate our submission in google earth. Make sure you have an up-to-date copy and then open the file in GE. Caution, this file will take some time to load, but once the images are loaded it should be fast to navigate through. Santa Run 1.kmz
Clarification:
The image that I attached is a single photo from the camera. No stitching or distortion correction has been done. I'll make sure to use the right options to display full resolution in the future. In the meantime, you can still view the full resolution by using Dan's link or by right-clicking on the attached photo and saving it off.
Comments
If anyone knows of a commercial product capable of orthorectification, terrain modeling, image stitching, and GPS coordination, I would love to know!
It looks like you recorded the times when you took photos. If you can map the telemetry to the actual image files, then you should be able to project those images into their approximate positions in Google Earth. Depending on how good your data is the images may only need minor tweaking or overall skews.
Flight Time: 9 mins
Autonomous Time: 6 mins
Cruise Speed: 30 knots
Track:Flight Track
Cruise Speed: 30 Knots
Time: ~5 minutes
I'll have more precise details once I manage to convert our flight data into KML which will be appended to the imagery data.
Total Area Imaged: > (700m X 700m), trimmed to (500m x 500m)
Pixel Size: <7 cm/pixel
Total Pictures Taken: 91
Total Pictures Used:24
Equivalent Result: Roughly 49 Megapixel Single Image
GIS Software: Google Earth
Technique:
1) Used telemetry embedded in each image to approximate its location on the map
2) In-house software removes lens distortion
3) Loaded into Google Earth
4) Manually adjusted key images to background
5) Aligned remaining images to keys and background until area complete
Low-Res Preview Image, click to see slightly larger image
Imagery Submission:
Filesize: 62 Mb
Usage: This file contains the images and data to recreate our submission in google earth. Make sure you have an up-to-date copy and then open the file in GE. Caution, this file will take some time to load, but once the images are loaded it should be fast to navigate through.
Santa Run 1.kmz
http://art1.mae.ncsu.edu/twiki/pub/Main/FlightTest06DEC09/image_126...
R/C Link: Spektrum AR9000+2 external receivers, JR10SXII+air module
Safety Switch: RxMux-http://www.acroname.com/robotics/parts/R306-RXMUX.html
Backup R/C Link: Piccolo 900 Mhz R/C Transmitter
Magnetometer: HMR2300
Wireless Link: 5.8Ghz Ubiquiti XR5: http://www.ubnt.com/products/xr5.php
Antenna: High gain auto-tracking patch antenna.
The data pushed was more in the 2GB range, and not pushed during the flight (the system is capable, some software issues were plaguing the system).
For more info, flight videos (sorry, not on board, we are out of space and wireless channels!) and a recap of the days events, check out: http://art1.mae.ncsu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome
*Flight test results will be posted on the wiki shortly*
The image that I attached is a single photo from the camera. No stitching or distortion correction has been done. I'll make sure to use the right options to display full resolution in the future. In the meantime, you can still view the full resolution by using Dan's link or by right-clicking on the attached photo and saving it off.
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