Update from DM. Thanks to all the beta testers. New mosaic only mode and other features!

Mosaic Only Mode! Unknown flight platform and controller. :) No geo reference. Thanks Hazelden.

Hey everyone,

It has been a crazy week! Thanks so much for all the help testing and great data. Ironed out a lot of bugs and added some new features. I can't thank the beta testers enough for the ideas, suggestions and patience! You guys rock. :)

The Mikrokoter workflow is solid and generates great maps. Thanks Martin R.
The Arudplane/Copter workflow is in progress and working good. It needs work still. Thanks Rigel, Irving Stafford and Jeff Taylor for the help.
The MAVinci and Pteryx workflows are solid and generating good maps. Thanks guys!
I am pretty sure we can accept any sort of log file with associated imagery, we are calling that "generic".
Today I finished a "mosaic only" mode, which will just accept imagery. No flight data or anything. It simply builds a mosaic and downloadable geotiff. This is great for people with just aerial imagery! Thanks Hazelden for the images and idea. (still super rough, just the framework is completed)
We have a new feature which calculates the area of each tile and also the estimated area of the entire mosaic.
Almost finished a workflow which builds an SRTM3 DEM underlay with contour lines of your flight area. Your mosaic is the top layer.
Tons of more features and bug fixes. Memcache for the win on the UI!
Many performance improvements.
Thanks DIYDRONES!

Re-deployed to a larger dedicated EC2 instance.

Shoot me a message with some information about your flight platform or if you just have aerial imagery you'd like to build maps from. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments!

On a side note, I finally got my 3DR quad flying. So cool! Lost a few more props but it is very stable, my only issue at this point is wobble on descent. :D

Mikrokopter Flight, Showing Area of Tile

Area of Imagery

MK Flight with SRTM3 DEM Underlay, Contour Lines Every 10m, Shaded Relief Added

ArduPlane Flight from Irvin Stafford. Blended Mosaic

Thanks

At the moment there are many details to be solved even on some basic terrains, while others work smoothly.

Theoretically it should be immune to optical problems since it is only projecting IMU and GPS, then smoothing. In practice there are many issues being investigated, so I am encouraging you to simply try it.

I woulnd't try uniform patterns with less than 80% overlap, this is why Pteryx has such a tremendous endurance.

It was designed because EasyUAV had problems with certain areas, even flat fields, so the requirement for overlap was equivalent to requirement for endurance, given limited max ceiling.

Is 150m a law limitation? If so, I would even restrict angle of view (zoom in), it requires even tighter legs but makes optical matching more reliable.

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Comments

JP March 31, 2012 at 5:39am

@kb thanks, can you offer some suggestions for improvement of the site? how did you make the Pteryx have such tremendous endurance? yes, you are right -- there are a lot of issues to work out. :)

@alpo I am processing your imagery now. thanks, keep you posed. JP
T3

Krzysztof Bosak March 27, 2012 at 7:00am

At the moment there are many details to be solved even on some basic terrains, while others work smoothly.

Theoretically it should be immune to optical problems since it is only projecting IMU and GPS, then smoothing. In practice there are many issues being investigated, so I am encouraging you to simply try it.

I woulnd't try uniform patterns with less than 80% overlap, this is why Pteryx has such a tremendous endurance.

It was designed because EasyUAV had problems with certain areas, even flat fields, so the requirement for overlap was equivalent to requirement for endurance, given limited max ceiling.

Is 150m a law limitation? If so, I would even restrict angle of view (zoom in), it requires even tighter legs but makes optical matching more reliable.
JP March 27, 2012 at 6:59am

@Alpo thanks for the question, the dronemapper system definitely has trouble sometimes on forested areas but depending on the amount of control points it finds it could do well. If you are interested I can get you a test account setup and you can try uploading a sample in 'mosaic mode' or with an attached flight log. :)
Alpo Hassinen March 27, 2012 at 5:02am

Does this program make good mosaics from forests?

There are hundreds of trees, and they look quite similar. We must fly at low altitude (<150m), and same tree seems to be totally different in two picture. (Even if we try to make 60 - 70% overlap.)

We have tested several programs, but all of them have had difficulties, and no one has georeferenced all pictures.

Here is one example: from 218 pictures only 113 are set to right place. (Area should continue to southeast.)
Martin Bellomo March 20, 2012 at 11:45am

I want to test DM with my Flights, we use an airplane with several sensors and have a log file wich asociates images with the rest of the data.

At this moment i cant register on the website. It tells me that i need to login to access..
JP March 20, 2012 at 10:47am

Thanks for all the help and bug fixes Rigel!
Rigel March 20, 2012 at 1:41am

JP, you rock man. Great work. The mosaic only feature based on images alone is already a great plus. Not every project calls for precision orthorectified imagery.

Keep at it!
Developer

Max Levine March 19, 2012 at 9:44am

Is there any room left for beta testers ?

This reply was deleted.