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A new era of open source funding? How we raised $5,099 for core work. — OpenDroneMap

As part of our mission to bring awesome drone software, we focus intensively on sustainability (a.k.a. how to pay for development, bug fixes, new features, hosting, etc. for the benefit of all). Open-source is a tricky type of software to fund. I will not cover the details, as other people have already done a great… A new era of open source funding? How we raised $5,099 … Continue reading A new era of open source funding? How we raised $5,099 for core work. — OpenDroneMap

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Scanning the samples with OpenDroneMap — part II

In a previous post, we did a bit of a proof of concept in using OpenDroneMap for scanning a skull. It was the second skull I had scanned with OpenDroneMap. The first was a mountain gorilla skull from the Virungas from the 1920s that I then printed in 3D and brought home with me to Rwanda on a recent trip. These previous scans though were … Continue reading Scanning the samples with OpenDroneMap — part II

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Beyond Data

I think of data from photogrammetry as a pipeline problem in which we have just begun to address the beginning of the pipeline. Historically, photogrammetry was the purview of a few (and depending on where you are in the world, laws may make it still so), dependent upon expensive software, even more expensive hardware (think: calibrated camera >$400k, cesna ~$130k, IMU ~$25k, plus fuel etc. … Continue reading Beyond Data

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Scanning the samples with OpenDroneMap

In previous posts, we’ve scanned whole cities, cliff faces, down to small things like ukuleles and tiny pits to identify difficult to identify plants. This post goes in a slight different direction, doing a bit of a meta-scan of another kind of voucher: animal bones. I wanted to figure out what other interesting use cases there are for OpenDroneMap. For example, could we use it … Continue reading Scanning the samples with OpenDroneMap

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3D Reconstructing… everything, part cinq: the beginnings of 3D construction

In previous posts in this series here and here II and here III here IV, we’ve worked through a surprising use case in OpenDroneMap: unreferenced imagery for general 3D reconstruction. Let us take this one step further toward 3D construction. If we have a model that we can georeference (✔️) and thus can do things like create contours (✔️) then maybe we can use these … Continue reading 3D Reconstructing… everything, part cinq: the beginnings of 3D construction

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Stone Town Digital Surface Model

Thanks to the tireless work of the folks behind the Zanzibar Mapping Initiative, I have been exploring the latest settings in OpenDroneMap for processing data over Stone Town. I managed to get some nice looking orthos from the dataset: But, excitingly, I was able to extract some nice looking surface models from the dataset too. This required using the Brown-Conrady model that recently got added … Continue reading Stone Town Digital Surface Model

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OpenDroneMap + blender = Fun (Part 2)

Introduction For a long time, I have wanted to do a little bit of integration between OpenDroneMap and blender. A while back, we got a great contribution of some scripts to help us with that integration: https://github.com/OpenDroneMap/ODM/tree/master/contrib/blender So today, I wanted to play around a bit with bringing objects into blender and animating and lighting the scene. It took a little bit of orienting myself, … Continue reading OpenDroneMap + blender = Fun (Part 2)

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Mapping the ephemeral

One of my favorite aspects of drone mapping is, since it is 1) under our personal control 2) high resolution and 3) can collect data even when it’s cloudy, it’s possible to observe and document ephemeral phenomena that otherwise might not be captured by satellite or manned aircraft imagery. To that end we mapped lake ice yesterday. We have been flying a series of videos … Continue reading Mapping the ephemeral

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Reconstructing cliffs in OpenDroneMap, or how to beat LiDAR at its own game

LiDAR and photogrammetric point clouds If we want to understand terrain, we have a pricey solution and an inexpensive solution. For a pricey and well-loved solution, LiDAR is the tool of choice. It is synoptic, active (and therefore usable day or night), increasingly affordable (but still quite expensive), and works around even thick and tall evergreen vegetation (check out Oregon’s LiDAR specifications as compared with … Continue reading Reconstructing cliffs in OpenDroneMap, or how to beat LiDAR at its own game

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