I create models from aerial photos taken from a fixed wing or helicopter. Most of my projects are buildings or small rectangular areas and I normally fly in a circle and shoot overlapping oblique images focusing on a point in the centre of the area. I have some projects along roads (see image) that are long and narrow and wanted to get a better idea of the optimal route to fly and collect the images. I am also looking at the best way (flight diagram) to collect images to cover a large area, 15-20 city blocks. I use a hand held camera and can’t take nadir images only oblique Any suggestions appreciated
Have you tried drone harmony app? It shows optimal routes.
Thank for the link Oto. I looked at the user manual and it seems this was designed primarily for automated use with drones; i assume the app controls the camera angle etc. I use a more manual method. I use a fixed wing aircraft or helicopter at approx 1200 feet agl and take th photos manually using a hand held camera, I was looking for some basic information on the aircraft path and the photo overlap that I need for a road corridor. I can only shoot oblique images; the app seems to collect nadir images when mapping corridors.
Farouk Rohoman
App shows routes so it is not necessary to use it for automatic flight. You can draw your own shape and check if there is overlap with not only nadir but other plans.
Drone Harmony
Maybe Bentley could publish their not finished photo planning app even if it doesn't allow automatic flights. It is still announced as existing product - ContextCapture capabilities now include cloud processing services, a mobile app, and photo planning for Bentley’s applications(https://www.bentley.com/en/about-us/news/2017/april/05/going-digital.)
Photo Planning Zones An image in ContextCapture photo planning that shows operation (gray), target (yellow), and forbidden (red) zones.
Aerial photos are normally captured using automation and can be nadir, oblique or a mixture of both depending on the results you need. Using the settings in the automation (altitude, overlap and speed) will calculate the most efficient pattern for the photo positions.
Here is a paper that covers the principles of photo acquisition for ContextCapture which includes using hand-held cameras. I guess you could apply those principles to capturing obliques using a hand-held camera from the air, but to ensure that you capture enough photos during your flight will compromise efficiency both in capture and processing.
Hello Stephen/Oto
Thanks for the responses
Stephen: . I've seen this paper and it really doesn't offer much excepts for the basics pf photo capture. Over the years (30+) I have collected "traditional" nadir photos for photogrammetry projects using light twin aircraft with metric cameras both film and digital (Wild RC10, Vexcel Ultracam etc.). These projects covered large areas (100+km x 100+km) and we had fairly sophisticated flight planning software to assist us.
As I mentioned most of the current apps are focused on drones and I may try to use the as Oto suggests. I was hoping Bentley could share some of the flight plans used for collecting photos for the large city projects such as Orlando, Paris, Marseille and other structures that they have in the Context Capture sample gallery.
Oto: I'll check on the Bentley app Thanks again