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The near future of precision farming

Posted by keeyen pang on October 16, 2013 at 2:00am

3689554206?profile=originalI have been quite successful to perform general aerial mapping, producing othomosaic and digital surface model for our local plantation company. Our Skywalker base UAV power by APM is a very reliable tools for acquire aerial images. Currently for a typical mission we fly at 300 meter altitude and resulting ground sample distance is about 9 to 12 cm per pixel using Canon S100 GPS. 


I am very excited to learn that Agpixel is providing a way to transform Near Infra Red images to NDVI, which may become a very powerful tools for the agronomist or the plantation management personnel to zoom in the problematic area as soon as possible before more severe damage or losses occur. This type of information will be crucial for the agronomist in their recommendation of fertilizer input, which account for 60% of the overall cost of production for oil palm plantation.      

Normal RGB Othomosaic image
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To acquire NIR image, I am using Maxmax modify NDVI Canon S100 GPS camera. The images quality is very good. Agpixel has maxmax modify camera setting ready to use so the user no need to tweak parameter like imageJ. A few click later, some beautiful false color image can be generated for viewing or export to various format.


Here come the tricky part, while the false color image is very attractive but how to adjust the parameter so the information presented in the false color image will be accurate and useful to the user has yet to finalize. More research will be needed. It will not serve the purpose to supply an eye appealing NDVI false color images and only to found out that the data is not accurate or misleading.


According to Mark Lanning, the CEO of Agpixel, the program is under massive update and I hope the final product can deal with cloud shadow issue, support large ( Gigabyte ) file and output geo-reference images. For the mean time, this program may be targeted for researcher and the professional from remote sensing field. I can not find a manual or tutorial on how to use it. In my opinion, a comprehensive and detail manual plus video tutorial is crucial if this product is target for general mass market. Most of the farmer or even agronomist may not well train in remote sensing subject.   


With the hard work of Mark and his team, I hope Agpixel will become a leading software for precision agriculture and ultimately help the world to produce more food in the most efficient way.

Near Infra Red Othomosaic image

3689554151?profile=originalAgpixel Green NDVI

3689554206?profile=original

False Color Composite image

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Tags: ndvi, nir, farming, precision, uav
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Comments

  • Mitko Bogdanov December 19, 2015 at 10:41am

    Hi All,

    I have got Canon SX260 converted by MaxMax + their Remote Sense Explorer software. I would like to calculate NDVI based on their image while using Matlab.
    Can you provide any brief directions on the matter?
    I am interested in the data format of the BIN files RSE writes

    cheers

  • 100KM
    keeyen pang December 19, 2014 at 6:21am

    Hi Alahna

    I'm using MaxMax converted NDVI Canon S100 GPS camera

  • Alahna Moore December 18, 2014 at 9:53am

    Hello Keeyen!

    I am curious of your process for creating these NDVI products.  Did you have one Canon S100 converted to IR-only, and used another unmodified for the RGB channels, or did you have one S100 "NDVI converted" through Maxmax, much like the XNiteCanonSX236NDVI model detailed here?

    Thanks!

    Turf Management
  • Stanley Anak Suab March 5, 2014 at 10:38pm

    Great Mr Keeyen. I love those pictures :-D like mini satellite imageries.

  • Taylor Glenn October 28, 2013 at 8:08pm

    James,

    We use Matlab extensively in our lab for algorithm development. You are right, NDVI is simple in Matlab, its a one liner. As LanMark was showing though its pretty simple in any language.

    As you've brought up Matlab and I have a lot of experience with it, I would say that it is pretty much the best tool out there for doing algorithm development, especially for dealing with imagery. But its definitely not something for end users.

  • LanMark October 28, 2013 at 7:18pm
    NDVI = NIR-VIS/NIR+VIS
  • 100KM
    keeyen pang October 28, 2013 at 7:01pm

    Agisoft has a 30 days trial. After which you must purchase to continue usage. I have not try Matlab. 

  • James Dunthorne October 28, 2013 at 6:46pm

    Is there a free version of agsoft?

    If not has anyone tried analysing these R-G-IR images in Matlab?

    I cannot imagine the maths for the NDVI etc is too difficult. 

  • Dries Raymaekers October 20, 2013 at 1:48pm

    Keeye, Mark, Deon

    Thank you for the feedback on the hotspot issue, which seems to rather a non-issue. I will contact the people from maxmax!

  • Deon van der Merwe October 20, 2013 at 6:36am
    I agree with Mark. The hot spot problem is related to the glass used to make the conversion. We have used several MaxMax converted cameras without any hot spot issues, including two S100 cameras. The MaxMax conversions are more expensive than some other options, but you can be confident it will work correctly.
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