> maybe this is one of the first to do it successfully in practice.
Photogrammetry software has been commercially available for a while. I played around with Agisoft photoscan [0] some time ago, and while the results were impressive, it did take a lot of human interaction to select the right source images and parameters.
I think maybe The Army has automated this pipeline to go from drone camera -> 3d map without needing a human.
Exactly. I can't wait until I can do this with my own drone--though maybe I shouldn't hold my breath for the open source package because it seems to have military applications right now.
There's a 1000-ft hill behind my house, and I thought it would be cool to get a 3D print of it. You can do this now with some online apps, based on the terrain model that you see in google maps. But the public data is "only" 30m resolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Radar_Topography_Missi...), whereas this technique could probably make a 1m resolution.
>Exactly. I can't wait until I can do this with my own drone--though maybe I shouldn't hold my breath for the open source package because it seems to have military applications right now.
I produce 3D models from photogrammetry from drones for the Engineering & Construction industry in Australia. The free software to use is VisualSFM.
I recommend flying your drone over your target in a sort of 4-circle Venn diagram, with the overlapping center the actual subject you want to scan. Have the drone pointing inward to the center of each circle while flying, the camera being at a ~55deg angle. You're essentially circle-strafing in 4 circles with a little overlapping bit in the middle.
Take video footage of the whole trip and extract individual frames... can't remember if VisualSFM does that for you or not.
If you've got a DJI drone, you can do this for tens of dollars using inexpensive software and services.
I've used the SparkPro iOS app (for mission planning and automated flight with a programmed set of waypoints with camera instructions).
And this service who'll stitch images together (for free for small enough areas. I needed a plot about 200 x 200m, and its didn't cost anything):
https://www.mapsmadeeasy.com/
Takes a bit of thinking and experimenting to get a good result. You need to get 4 or more times overlap for everything you want good stitching and elevation data from. (And the DJI specs on their cameras are misleading. I wasn't expecting the FoV spec to be diagonal, so my first attempt didn't overlap as much as Idol intended...)
Photogrammetry software has been commercially available for a while. I played around with Agisoft photoscan [0] some time ago, and while the results were impressive, it did take a lot of human interaction to select the right source images and parameters.
I think maybe The Army has automated this pipeline to go from drone camera -> 3d map without needing a human.
[0] https://www.agisoft.com/