Posts Tagged: UAVs
Fly4Fall Campaign Seeks Aerial 360 Photos from Citizen Scientist Drone Users
Our colleague Greg Crutsinger at Drone Scholars recently launched an initiative to mobilize the large network of amateur UAV enthusiasts for an exciting campaign called Fly4Fall.
Under the Fly4Fall campaign, amateur drone hobbyists across the globe are invited to take aerial 360 photos with their drone and contribute them to a collection of fall landscapes that will grow over time.
Never taken an aerial 360 photo before? Me either, but fortunately it recently got a whole lot easier with a free iOS app called Hangar 360. The Hangar app flies your DJI drone for you, climbing to the height you program and then taking about 25 photos in a circle at three different angles to the horizon. The whole thing takes about 2 minutes, and you can collect multiple panos per flight. You then land the drone (but don't turn it off just yet!), transfer the photos from the drone to your phone over the WiFi, and then upload the photos to Hangar. Hangar stitches the photos for you in the cloud (also free!), and sends you a link. The results are stunning! See the panoramic photo below of Kearny REC made by IGIS's Robert Johnson earlier this week.
Inspired by citizen science initiatives like the Christmas Bird Count and Project BudBurst, where large numbers of naturalists record observations in a coordinated way, Fly4Fall is part non-professional science project, part art, part community building, and a whole lot of fun. Crutsinger discussed some of the potential science angles in a recent LinkedIn post.
Full instructions can be found at Fly4Fall.com. Currently, the Hangar app only works on iOS, unfortunately, and only with DJI drones (but the list includes most of the popular ones). Android enthusiasts can check out Litchi, which includes similar functionality but costs $25 and you have to process the images on your own (look for tutorials online).
Of course like any drone flight you have the follow the rules - only fly in permitted areas, don't fly directly over people, and be safe!
We look forward to seeing the Fly4Fall panoramas coming in. Feel free to use the comment box below to share your experiences and thoughts!
IGIS Launches Drone Mapping California Email List
Hot on the heels of a very successful three-day DroneCamp workshop, IGIS has launched a new email list for people interested in using drones for mapping and data collection.
Drone Mapping California is a moderated email list intended to share news, information, and questions about using drones for mapping and data collection. That covers a lot - technology, training, regulations, hardware, software, analytical techniques, etc. We hope this list will be a channel through which new and seasoned drone operators and researchers can share and grow their knowledge and expertise.
The list has a California focus, but all are welcome. If you are interested in collecting data with drones, please subscribe here! IGIS will administer the list for the foreseeable future, including moderating messages to prevent spam, but we are always open to comments and suggestions.
Top: Matrice 100 with dual RGB and multispectral sensors
Bottom: mNDGI image of a field at Desert Research and Extension Center
Photos by Sean Hogan
ANR welcomes its most recent FAA certified drone pilots: The entire IGIS Team!
A FAA remote pilot license is required to fly drones legally for any non-recreational purpose (which includes basically everything we use drones for in ANR and UC). The 'hard' part of obtaining your drone pilot certificate is passing a 60 question FAA Airman General Knowledge exam, which covers a broad range of topics related to the safe and legal operation of drones in the national airspace. Our efforts to get certified were propelled forward by an excellent FAA exam prep-class offered in early March by UC Merced Extension, and taught by Andreas Anderson, a long-term pilot and graduate of the UC Merced MESA lab.
Our programmatic goal in getting more certified drone pilots is to help serve the growing demand for drone services in the Division, including both flying missions and training. Flying safely and legally however is only the start. Using drones effectively as data collection platforms for research and extension takes a host of other skills and knowledge, including mission planning, flight operations, using the equipment, data management, and select principles of photogrammetry and remote sensing. This is why we encourage everyone in ANR interested in using UAVs for their research or extension programs to attend one of our Drone workshops, such as the upcoming workshops at Kearney REC (April 13-14), UC Berkeley (Apr 2 ), Quincy (June 7-8), or our three-day Dronecamp at the end of July (application deadline April 15, 2017). Need some inspiration how drones might be useful in your work? Check out the current issue of Cal Ag which features a number of applications of drone science for agriculture and natural resources.