Recent content by doncooke

For a long time, the USGS Digital Ortho Quad program was funded by the Dept of Agriculture to provide the basis for measuring acreage planted and fallow for various Ag programs.

I've used Google Earth for years, and now find I can create detailed .kmz overlays using my Mini-II, Dronelink and WebODM.

Google Earth came up for me with Feb 2024 imagery. I turned on Historical imagery and found that the March 2022 imagery is much sharper. See examples. FWIW, I do some mapping for my RV park, which is a Co-op. I flew a Dronelink mapping mission with my Mini-II and made an orthophoto and KMZ with...

I used AutoStitch 15-20 years ago, before my phone did panoramas for me. It's still available, free, just dump photos in a folder and out comes a pano. For most of my panos, I go up 100' or so and take three overlapping stills with the bottom of the frame right on the horizon, so the drone...

Thank you! I fully understand the desire not to drive.

I've been told it's temperature differences in the much-narrowed "tube" of atmosphere that the tiny visible remains of direct sunlight go through. I guess that usually these get averaged out when the light is going through the much wider (angular ~30 minutes) tube.

Thanks, Robert! I've seen a couple of totals plus the annular last October. I'm resigned never to get pictures of the sun as good as yours, and am more curious about seeing the shimmering light on a white surface just before and after totality making ripple pattern. Also watching the antics of...

I'm a full-time RVer and plan to observe from somewhere along totality, probably around Uvalde (!) Texas. My intention is to fly video (Mini II) 400' up, pointed in the direction the shadow's coming from. The shadow moves about 1500 MPH over the ground and I'm curious to see if this is an...

I'm a full-time RVer and plan to observe from somewhere along totality, probably around Uvalde (!) Texas. My intention is to fly video (Mini II) 400' up, pointed in the direction the shadow's coming from. The shadow moves about 1500 MPH over the ground and I'm curious to see if this is an...

Believe me, it is well worth it to move to the 100% zone. REALLY!

If you take all the pictures from the same place, then the camera is going to see walls on houses that are off to the side. Perhaps you want an orthophoto, which is an artificially-generated image with everything displayed from above. I use Dronelink to plan a mapping mission and control the...

Consider making an orthomap. I use Dronelink to plan and control the flight, and WebODM to process the photos to create the orthomap, as well as other neat stuff like textured 3D models. Be warned that this is edging on varsity-level computer stuff, but I have made it work multiple times. And...

I've had excellent results with my Mini-II using DroneLink to plan and run the flight, then WebODM to process the images and create the Ortho. WebODM is open source and sometimes cranky, but you can view a 3D textured model of your flight, and generate a .KMZ file which works in Google Earth Pro.

Thank you!

I read these "flyaway" questions avidly. Has anyone posted a list of good-practice suggestions to avoid flyaways?