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Western Australian companies COPTERCAM & Pixelcase team up to produce an Aerial 360 of Perth in just 60 minutes
COPTERCAM is Perth's only licenced UAV aerial photography company. www.coptercam.com.au
Pixelcase is Australia's premium virtual tour company.
Comments
ha ha, that's better, that's fantastic! Cheers Hai Tran, have passed to my buddy who lives there, he's sure to recognise it, what a great system!
@Owen, strange the link didn't work but if you click on the picture it will take you to the 360. I've amended the post to indicate that.
Hey Hai, Is that a dead link now, or do I need to empty my cookies on the floor for it to work? Keen to see Perth from the air. cheers mate,
Always posting something interesting, great stuff!
I see being a licensed pilot especially with a instrument rating a plus plus The UAV operator would all ready know the flight regulations (it might take him a year to fly RC) how ever a transponder could be put on The UAV and ATC could Monitor it's location and be in con tact with the UAV operator same as General aviation The local ATIS could publish the UAV's operating location and time There could be UAV flying lanes and ceilings around heavy populated areas
There is also the issue of aircraft turblence which could impact the radio controller model UAV such it crashes into the public or other public property. I am not suggesting you or anyone responsible would do this but the arrangement of licensing which provides for Model UAVs to operate at higher than normal altitudes and over public places does presents interesting challenges.
My comment on the ready to fly was in relation to this forum as people here are focused on DIY projects which are quite inexpensive compared with commercial systems, but much more feature rich and open source. I would also argue that many of the systems people build here are comparable to the likes of the bigger commercial suppliers and a higher price does not equate to making something ready for commercial / proffesional use. Quality assurance is a bigger factor for me and a higher price saldy does not necessarily mean quality follows.
But I do like your choice of the droidworks frames and photohigher camera mounts I have been focusing on building a hybrid out of these products and applying my electronic engineering skills to hardening all the flight control systems. I am still siting on the fence for which electronics system aimshould use for stable low altitude photography.
@Greg, you should create a discussion forum about CASA's role in licensing, I'm sure that the topic will be a hot topic.
Whilst you don't have to be a real pilot to excel in flying radio controlled models, UAVs (commercial radio controlled aircraft) operate under different regulations and may operate with real aircraft and over populous areas, something that model aircraft can not do. Therefore whilst it is not a requirement to hold a real pilot licence, when faced with 20 r/c hobbists who all love to get paid to fly R/C, only choosing those that also happen to have a Commercial Pilot Licence means that when the Channel 7 new helicopter is hovering nearby (as was the case last Friday), the UAV operator was able to advise the news helicopter of the presence of a UAV and communicate each others intent. That is just one example of the benefits of having UAV operators with real licences. I a simple question to non licensed pilots: If operating in Fremantle WA, what height would you expect light aircraft to be flying overhead at, how do you find out the lower limit of controlled airspace there, and what is the radio frequency you could use to communicate with a low flying helicopter in that area? If you were licensed the answers would be simple. 1500 ft, the VTC, 135.25
Over the last 18 months I've tried and tested numerous frames, flight control systems, and gimbals, ranging from Arducopter Quad, Scarab, RCCarbon Hexa, DJI Wookong M, APM, Gaui 500, Flame wheel, Multiwii, Mikrokopter, Droidworx, Photohigher. There have been many lessons learnt, many crashes, many problems. Building a commercial grade aerial camera system isn't just a case of slapping the cheapest parts together. I don't want to be negative about all parts we rejected, so I will just leave you with this, the ready to fly configuration that I've come up with and build has proven to be robust and fit for commercial use, they have been inspected by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and their only suggestion was for the camera gimbal wiring to be tidied up. The results such as the photos and videos produced speak for themselves. When an airframe alone costs $1000, a gimbal $1000, $1200 for motors, and a commercial licence for the navigation board cost $1500 Euro the final product doesn't end up cheap. In fact at $13,000 inclusive of a fully configured ground station laptop, 10 megapixel camera batteries and charger, is cheap compared to the CyberQuad Maxi that sells for $36,000 with half the number of motors, the Dragan Flyer X6 for $40,000 and the Aibotics Hexa for about the same price.
The copters they use by the way are basically the droidworkx AD frames, with Mikrocopter electronics. Camera mounts like the Av 200 are designed by Photohigher They sell ready to fly packages based on this config. Very expensive
I am building somthing similar, but prefer the versitlity of the APM hardware and software platform.
Perth almost looks pretty from up there. Nice one Hai.
Next time we will shoot RAW, this will allow the 360 to have more zoom levels.
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