Video measurements

[Ice_Man_CPRA]

Is anyone aware of an accurate way to take field measurements using the video capabilities of the Mavic? We would like to fly along some levee sections and record distance measurements as we go. Is this possible?

 

[Camino Ken]

I have never tried do do this but I did a quick search and there seems to be a number of software programs that might do what you want. If that doesn’t work what I might try, just thinking of the top of my head, is to put an object of known length on the ground and take a video of it at the height you would be flying. When checking the levees make sure you fly at the same height. You can take the video later and calibrate the distance on a given display device by using the video of the calibrated length object and then make a simple “ruler” to measure the other areas. This will not be incredibly accurate due to variations in your flying height. It might be better if you programmed waypoints or use something like Litchi to help control the flight. Images shot straight down would be best to avoid any perspective based errors.

Just my two cents from a novice.

 

[53-63-6f-74-74]

Is anyone aware of an accurate way to take field measurements using the video capabilities of the Mavic? We would like to fly along some levee sections and record distance measurements as we go. Is this possible?

Are they new or old? There are many State GIS repositories that contain relatively new sets of aerial imagery, already geo-referenced and ready to import into mapping software. Even Google Earth updates fairly frequently in some areas. The quickest and most accurate way would be just to scale the distances from existing photos if you can find them. NAIP imagery is freely available from the Dept. of Agriculture. I often use SASPlanet which is a great free program that allows downloading from many different sets of photos, as well as some basic measurement functions, but state and NAIP images are not integrated into it.

 

[Dave Maine]

I would be careful doing any precise measurement. The DJI lenses have a fair amount of distortion with them, as most moderate priced very wide angle lenses do. Any kind of linear image measurement will be potentially affected. The results will get worse as you move away from the center axis of the lens.

 

[Ribs2901]

What I want to do is measure the width of a river with my Mavic from the air by taking a photo looking straight down. Is there any kind of software that would be able to do that? I had a cursory look through the current image measurement software out there but none seem to be a good fit for doing something like that.