National Churches Trust

Drone Photography

So, this afternoon I've mainly been messing around with drone photography, but not in the usual sense. This is actual photography, of physical drones. This has been quite interesting. Here's a test image, which was just something that has been sat on my desk, but this should give you the general idea...

...and another one.

In the next couple of days we should see our first drone acquired orthomosaic from India. Nice to see that drone technology is being adopted on the subcontinent with both hardware and software being developed using locally, rather than just buying in an off-the-shelf UAV system. We've recently seen drone data from Papua New Guinea on the site, too. Perhaps it's time to build a drone projects map using anonymised location data from the database - that would look pretty neat!

Very minor site news post, nothing major, mainly for my own benefit.

New sign up last night from Argentina.

I need to add an option to the sign up page that lets a new user choose their country from a dropdown list. Primarily, I need this for reporting so that I can get an understanding of where new users are coming from, but secondarily, I should be able to use this data to provide a localised service where the demand exists.

We now have operators in Portugal, France, Spain, Poland, Romania, Latvia, South Korea, Jamaica, Canada and the United States.

Pix4D - Drone Mapping Software

We often get asked about our workflow here, and, due to the nature of the industry, we also tend to field quite a few questions from new operators who are getting into the business. Nine times out of ten we're asked about processing software and what we'd recommend. For people who are getting into drone operations I'm most likely to recommend Pix4D. Agisoft's Photoscan is another great product, but the learning curve is steeper and (to me) it's not as intuitive. 

MOLA - Museum of London Archaeology

This is not a blog

This isn't supposed to be a blog.

This is where I tinker around and play with ideas for DroneLab.io

However, it seems like we're getting visitors for some reason, so if there's anything specific you'd like to know about the industry, or typical applications of the technology then drop me a line.

ben [AT] dronelab [dot] io

We've got data from pretty much every sector so if there are any examples you'd like to see then let me know.

I'll be featuring some of the public datasets that get uploaded to DroneLab, and if people are interested I might also start doing little features on some of the operators who are using the platform and the type of techniques they use to collect their data.

If I publish this, and put it into a public forum, then I'm more likely to actually do it!

above surveying

Above Surveying are a UK based drone operator who specialise in thermographic survey work. 

A typical application for thermographic survey work can be found in the solar power industry, where the UAV is used to detect faulty panels, check boundaries and carry out general site inspection work. 

Sensefly