So You Want to Create Maps Drones?

Book excerpt: "Photogrammetry with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) is a rapidlymaturing technology. Being versatile and inexpensive, it has the potentialto offer solutions in a wide range of applications, such as forestry inventory, precision agriculture, flood hazard assessment, pollution monitoring, land survey, and integrity assessment of industrial facilities. Written in the form of a fieldguide, this book explains, in easy-to-understand language, basic concepts ofphotogrammetry and spatial data, and techniques for mosaicking drone photos.The book is not intended as a complete "do-it-yourself" guide, but after reading it, you get a good sense about what hardware and software parts you will need toassemble a drone system on your own. Or if you have the funds, simply purchasea commercial product and follow the steps laid out in the book to design yourapplication. Towards that end, you will find the survey of industrial leaders ofenvironmental drone applications particularly useful.The author of the book, Kike Calvo, is an experienced National GeographicCreative photographer. The explanation of technical jargons is based on his ownexperience and interviews with his colleagues. Some of the questions and answersare included in the book. These are questions you probably would have and Calvohas already got expert answers for you. I find this style of writing quite effective, injecting liveness into what otherwise could be dry reading.UAV photogrammetry is not just about obtaining pretty pictures. To realize itspotential you must "georeference" the pictures, produce an "orthomosaic," andmake "3D point clouds." Read the book to find out what all these mean, and muchmore."Foreword by Xuhui Lee. Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor, Yale University.Editor-in-Chief, Agricultural and Forest Meteorol