New DPS drone program helping to solve how and why accidents happen
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - When DPS trooper Brian Hon rolls up to a scene, instead of looking around, he simply looks up.
“If you ask anybody around they kind of know me as 'The Drone Guy,'” Hon said.
He single-handedly launched the department's drone program by buying his own and testing the software, to see if it would even work.
“We put the two together and, pardon the pun but it took off,” he laughed.
But this is next level technology, which he can now use to reproduce crash scenes for investigations.
When an accident happens, they’ll launch their drone directly over the scene and use a flight path to take hundreds of pictures so they can recreate the crash using 3D technology.
“Using that software we stitch all the photos together and essentially come up with a Google maps style image” Hon said.
Those photos all have GPS data tied to them, so the renderings are exactly to scale, meaning near-perfect measurements for investigators.
“We can recreate mathematically what happened later. We can measure tire friction marks inside the imagery,” he said. “Chips and gouges and stuff like that in the roadway we can see with the drone that we couldn’t see otherwise.”
This benefits you as a driver too. The faster the drone takes pictures of the crash, the sooner they can clear it.
Hon said other agencies using this in the country are clearing scenes up to 70 percent faster.
It's not the kind of "sidekick" Trooper Hon expected to have.
“I’m very passionate about this. This is kind of ‘my baby’ this program is a little bit,” he said.
For him it's been pretty cool to watch it take flight.
->> Click/tap here to download the free azfamily mobile app.
Copyright 2019 KPHO/KTVK (KPHO Broadcasting Corporation). All rights reserved.
(Source: 3TV/CBS 5)
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - When DPS trooper Brian Hon rolls up to a scene, instead of looking around, he simply looks up.
“If you ask anybody around they kind of know me as 'The Drone Guy,'” Hon said.
He single-handedly launched the department's drone program by buying his own and testing the software, to see if it would even work.
“We put the two together and, pardon the pun but it took off,” he laughed.
But this is next level technology, which he can now use to reproduce crash scenes for investigations.
When an accident happens, they’ll launch their drone directly over the scene and use a flight path to take hundreds of pictures so they can recreate the crash using 3D technology.
“Using that software we stitch all the photos together and essentially come up with a Google maps style image” Hon said.
Those photos all have GPS data tied to them, so the renderings are exactly to scale, meaning near-perfect measurements for investigators.
“We can recreate mathematically what happened later. We can measure tire friction marks inside the imagery,” he said. “Chips and gouges and stuff like that in the roadway we can see with the drone that we couldn’t see otherwise.”
This benefits you as a driver too. The faster the drone takes pictures of the crash, the sooner they can clear it.
Hon said other agencies using this in the country are clearing scenes up to 70 percent faster.
It's not the kind of "sidekick" Trooper Hon expected to have.
“I’m very passionate about this. This is kind of ‘my baby’ this program is a little bit,” he said.
For him it's been pretty cool to watch it take flight.
->> Click/tap here to download the free azfamily mobile app.
Copyright 2019 KPHO/KTVK (KPHO Broadcasting Corporation). All rights reserved.
(Source: 3TV/CBS 5)
