Garmin VIRB Ultra 30 for aerial photography/video

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03-20-2018 04:58 PM
LanNguyen1
New Contributor III

Hi everyone,

I'm new to FMV in ArcGIS. I was introduced to Garmin Virb because it has all built-in sensors for FMV. Has anyone tried to take photos/video of the ground from 10000 feet (3km) height yet? I would like to apply the FMV to replace the aerial photography we currently use to monitor the forest plantation dynamics on the ground. It would save us time from georeferencing the images. I would love to here and share with you!

Thank you very much!

Alan

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5 Replies
CodyBenkelman
Esri Regular Contributor

The Garmin Virb is a great product for capturing video for use in FMV for ArcGIS, but the accuracy of the GPS and orientation sensors are not adequate to perform direct georeferencing.  Further, the single frame resolution is lower than in a still frame camera.   Video and still frames are fundamentally different modes of image capture, each with its unique advantages.  It sounds like you want to build an accurate image map, and video is not the right starting point. If you want accurate still frame imagery, capture single frames with a good quality digital camera and process with either Drone2Map or the Ortho Mapping workflow in ArcGIS Pro.  

LanNguyen1
New Contributor III

Thanks Cody!

Currently, our contractor provides still, geotagged images taken from 3km altitude, footprint 2km*2km. We still have to georeference these imgs manually to track the change of vegetation on ground, monthly.

However, we would like to build our own workflow to make it more flexible and cheaper. We would like to take photos/videos at lower altitude (1km to 1.5km) in some cases to avoid the cloud. we do not take continuous shots, just where we want to see (monthly cutover, windthrow, earthworks...). I'm thinking about recording my targets with Garmin Virb then extract frames in my office. Each target only needs about 30-60 seconds.

Do you think frames from 4K 30fps (or higher) video is good enough to distinguish standing trees, falling trees and bare ground? We do not need super high resolution and highly precise georeferenced images, we can calibrate them. 

We also think about taking the control unit from a drone, replace the camera to a better one (Sony A7000), put this system on a fixed wing aircraft, taking still images.

We can always take the still geotagged images, I just want to try something that can save our time from georeferencing too much

Thanks again for replying and hope that you will share your thoughts/idea with us.

Regards,

Alan

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CodyBenkelman
Esri Regular Contributor

Alan -

It sounds like an interesting project, but I don't see anything in this where I can offer advice.  Your question about distinguishing individual trees will depend on the focal length of the lens, sensor size, any problems with ground blur, as well as external effects such as whether the trees are leaf on/leaf off, cloud shadows, snow on the ground, etc.  

Cody B

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LanNguyen1
New Contributor III

We do not really need too high resolution images. We expect that the extracted frames can have similar quality like this:

Taken by a Canon 5D, at 3000m altitude, has been compressed down to only 2MB size. We just want to monitor the cutover progress on ground

Thanks,

Alan

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CodyBenkelman
Esri Regular Contributor

I'm sorry I lost track of this discussion.  

Single frame imagery from either the Canon 5D or the Garmin Virb Ultra 30 can be processed by Drone2Map (http://esri.com/drone2map) or by ArcGIS Pro (Ortho mapping in ArcGIS Pro—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS Desktop ) to do the georeferencing for you automatically.  (You'd want to add ground control to ensure accuracy, but otherwise the process is almost entirely automatic).

Let me know your results!
Cody B. 

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