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!
Joe,
very nice! In order for everyone to see full resolution picture you should change settings when posting it to the forum ( right now it's a big thumbnail) - select the option for full red pic to open in a neew window
Here is our team photo from our flight test. Our Santa was to use ourselves to spell out "SANTA!". (I was the exclamation point.) The blue dot next to the runway is our safety pilot who, for obvious reasons, could not be included. You can also see four targets laid out to the right of the runway which we were using to test our resolution. Behind the safety pilot is our trailer which houses our computers, moves our equipment to the field, and (somewhat) shelters us from the elements. The picture is 10 Megapixels, so you can keep zooming in.
Today I was flying with the NC State Aerial Robotics Club. It was overcast and freezing cold. We were able to fly the T3-4 course with some amazing results. It will be a little while before I can post the full results due to the 4 Gigabytes of data produced during our runs. In the meantime enjoy some details:
Aircraft: ArcWulf - Modified 8 Foot Telemaster Camera: Nikon D60 - 10 MP Camera Software: In-House Variant of libptp2/commSDK Gimbal: "The Ghimbler" In-house Flight Computer: Dual-Core Atom Motherboard with 1 Watt Ubiquiti wifi connection Autopilot: Piccolo LT w/ magnetometer Flight Planning Software: Piccolo Command Center - Lawn Mower Pattern Take-off/Landing: Manual Stitching Software: To Be Determined
Flight Crew:
Joseph Moster
Sam Carter
Dan Edwards
Matt Hazard
John Freeze
William Stewart
Robert Armes
Alex Manasa
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 ;-).
Do you get extra points if your UAV is modeled to look like Santa and his sleigh? I started to design such a beast, but then realized it would only get me free an unrestricted airspace one night a year.
Comments
Is there a picture max for PTGUI software?
very nice! In order for everyone to see full resolution picture you should change settings when posting it to the forum ( right now it's a big thumbnail) - select the option for full red pic to open in a neew window
Aircraft: ArcWulf - Modified 8 Foot Telemaster
Camera: Nikon D60 - 10 MP
Camera Software: In-House Variant of libptp2/commSDK
Gimbal: "The Ghimbler" In-house
Flight Computer: Dual-Core Atom Motherboard with 1 Watt Ubiquiti wifi connection
Autopilot: Piccolo LT w/ magnetometer
Flight Planning Software: Piccolo Command Center - Lawn Mower Pattern
Take-off/Landing: Manual
Stitching Software: To Be Determined
Flight Crew:
Joseph Moster
Sam Carter
Dan Edwards
Matt Hazard
John Freeze
William Stewart
Robert Armes
Alex Manasa
Also being closer to The Man in Red you have an advantage, not sure how to handicap you for that.
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.
Of course Santa would be easy to spot - LOL
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