Almost a year ago we had the chance to present one of the most magical uses of drones at SEAC 2014 Materiality of the sky. Combining Photogrammetry from small UAS, Surveying, Sky-Celestial body Simulators and Archaeoastronomy we managed to calculate the exact age and day that an ancient temple was build.
"Mapping of the Christian Churches in Medieval City of Rhodes Island. A new perspective of the orientation with the use of a Remote Sensing Unmanned Aerial System (UAS)"
Images from left to right: A. 3D Temple model injected to Starry Night simulator, temples were aligned mostly close to equinoxes or close to the patron saint day. B. Othophoto map by UAS imagery. C. 3D Church model with highlighted azimuth measurment samples.
After that, we were immerged to a hole new world, crying out to be discovered by new methods, payloads, flying platforms, GIS analysis and more! Most important, Drones led us to discover our heritage, learn and study history
among the bits and bytes we dig in all day.
As 3DR Distros, we are closely connected with Academia and we offer complete systems or developement parts to universities and research institutions. That relationship along with the active scolars within of our team, gave us the chance to participate in a wonderfull summer school for "DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN CULTURAL HERITAGE & TOURISM" . which took place at the mythical Delfi.
Participants had the opportunity to meet numerus state of the art technologies and multidisciplinary methods. From our behalf, we had the opportunity to present the usage and countless possibilities of UAS photogrammetry.
We found that, the best tool to immerse scientist like archaeologists in UAS Photogrammetry, was the new 3DR SOLO, because it combines everything an UAS must have, in an unbeatable form factor and easy of use. SOLO as a "smart tool" can help a student to identify every UAS component like motors, payload, ground station, telemetry etc. by just opening a back pack. Furthermore individual 3DR components and UcanDrone airframes were used to emphasise that researchers and scholars can easily design and build their own aerial platform based on their needs.
We will be happy to share any tips and tricks, we used for the implementation of UAS tech, to similar projects.
we would like to express our sincere thanks to:
Prof. Ioannis Liritzis, Lab of Archaeometry, University of the Aegean for the invitation, leadreship, hospitality and organization.
Prof. John N. Hatzopoulos, Dept of Environment, University of the Aegean for his guidance, support and innovation spirit all these years as my mentor.
Dr Anestis Koutsoudis, ATHENA-Research and Innovation Center in Information, Communication and Knowledge Technologies and Prof. Thomas Levy, University of California, San Diego, Qualcomm, USA, with their teams, for the inspiring cooperation and sharing knowledge and experiences.
Finally Dr. Helen Vassiliou, University of the Aegean for her long friendship, support and initiation in the facinating world of archaeoastronomy.
Thanks for reading,
Dimitris (James) Stefanakis,
UcanDrone CEO
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