Maptitude - http://research.umbc.edu/~roswell/maptitude.html
Armando wrote:
> I am about to embark in a similar work
> this year in Argentina.
>
> I would very much appreciate if you could provide more detail on
> the type of
> hardware you are using (photo camera, GPS, etc) and the software
> you are using
> for keeping photos and positional information linked during the flight.
>
On the chance that others in this group might be interested I'll respond to
all instead of just email. Apologies if a bit off topic.
First of all, Argentina is one of my fantasy destinations. If you need help
with your project please let me know. I have a book by Willy Kenning called
"Argentina, An Aerial Journey". Very beautiful country.
Between 1990 and 1995 I shot all the saltwater shoreline for the state of
Washington dept of Ecology. I shot it with a Pentax 6x7. We did a 360 every
20 frames to reload. Sigh. But we got the job done and did it well. As the
quality of films improved I decided I could downsize to a Pentax 645 for the
next shoot. I acquired a 70mm back which increased my capacity to 90 images
before I reloaded. I also purchased an old Vinten 70mm with around 500 image
capacity. I was ready.
In the meantime the state posted all the photos to a website.
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/apps/shorephotos/ They did a wonderful job with them.
If your interested in the mapping end check out their beautiful maps. The
site was well received and generated enough interest that the folks at
Ecology called and wanted to update all the photos. This time I had to do it
all in just a year. They decided they didn't care about 8x10s or
transparencies. They wanted the digital files and they wanted them
georeferenced.
Yikes! I was fairly familiar with gps and knew there were solutions but the
Trimble route was a bit pricey. So my research and development department
took over. (That's me. My company consists of one employee. Me!) I had just
purchased a Sony D770 1.5 megapixel digital camera. It was nice. I loved it.
I took it up and shot some samples along with 645 samples. I printed 8x10s
and scanned them and compared them to the digital shots. We, the state and
I, decided that if we went digital it would have to be a minimum of 2
megapixel with 3 preferred. The challenge was finding a camera which was
fast enough. I figured the camera needed to process the photos in less than
10 seconds. Not a burst speed but continuous. I looked at the Kodak dc265
and later 290. They had a kit which could write gps data to each file. Cool,
except the continuous shoot rate was over twenty seconds. Then I found the
Kodak dcs330. It was three megapixel, had a fast processor, great glass and
best of all it took a PMCIA gps card. Bingo! Except the only gps card it
would take was a Trimble and they had long since stopped making them. I
tried different pcmcia gps cards with no success. After hours on the phone
with Kodak over several weeks they released a new firmware for the camera
which accepted nmea data via the serial port. And it worked. Kodak suggested
a Garmin g3plus gps but it will work with any of them which outputs standard
nmea.
One problem, Kodak's dcs tiff files are proprietary and they neglected to
give me a way to get the gps data out of the files. This time they were not
eager to help. There was an option for including the data on the image
itself. But I needed to process that data. Looking at it did little for me.
I then began working with a guy that had written a program for acquiring the
tiff images. He updated it to include my file type and output a seperate
file with the gps data in it. It worked and after some file compilation
problems were solved we had our database.
I considered a laptop connected to both the camera and the gps and have it
record the location every time I shot a photo. This is a more traditional
approach to georeferencing as I'm sure most of you are aware. One advantage
would be that I could use any camera. Probably trigger it with the flash
sych. File naming was going to be a challenge. What if I shot 900 pictures
in a day and I had only recorded 875 locations? Nightmare potential. I don't
know. I still may end up going back to that system.
So now I have the data. I needed to locate the actual sites more accurately
as the recorded position was that of the plane. The photos were oblique so
the subject was a couple of hundred yards away. Also, photos without data
needed to be located. Enter Maptitude. I had purchased it over five years
ago to develop some marketing maps but never really got anywhere with it.
Till now. I will make Maptitude work. It's a quality product produced by
quality people.
One aspect of the mapping challenge is that while flying a narrow inlet the
sites are recorded closer to the opposite shoreline so any snapping process
would put them on the wrong shoreline. Bummer. Someday I would also like to
include directional information then I could just add ninety degrees to the
course and add the distance. That would be slick.
As I began this project I realized I would probably switch all of my work to
digital. Bigger job than I thought it would be. File management was a
particular challenge. I solved it with a program called Cumulous made by
Canto. It's ok. They have a module for working with the gps data produced by
Kodak dcs cameras but, alas, for use only with data from an earlier
firmware. But that's ok. I think Maptitude will serve that end better
anyway. When a software tries to do too much it usually falls short.
Another option to consider would be the use of Kodak's dcs 660. It produces
a six megapixel file. Or one of the older 460s might be an option although
the continuous shooting speed is going to be close.
Good luck Armando. Wish I was flying with you.
Mike
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