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Aerial Photography
aerial-photography

This is an open source community effort to develop **simple, low-cost aerial photography** methods for a range of conditions. All accessible hardware and software efforts are welcome here! There are several sub-categories: * [Balloon mapping](/wiki/balloon-mapping) * [Kite mapping](/wiki/kite-mapping) * [Pole Mapping](/wiki/pole-mapping) Also: * [Kite making](/wiki/kite-making) - make your own! * [Balloon Mapping Materials](/wiki/balloon-mapping-materials) - where to get them! * [Camera selection](/wiki/camera-selection) * [Camera triggering](/wiki/camera-trigger) - snap a picture every second * [Photo rigs](/wiki/photo-rig) - connect your camera to your balloon/kite/etc! * [MapKnitter](/wiki/mapknitter) - Stitching images into maps! * [Mapping curriculum](/wiki/mapping-curriculum) - a range of useful resources **You can join in by:** * Reading about goals and [asking great questions](#Questions) * Trying (and adding to) our [community-made how-to guides](#Activities) * Building on others’ work; **adapt, hack and remix** the kits to refine and expand them **** ## Activities [activities:aerial-photography] **** ## Starter Kits Public Lab’s Kits initiative offers starter kits for kite and balloon photography. The point of the kits is to provide a shared reference design for building experimental setups onto. You can also use our guides as a resource for building or purchasing materials of your own. **[Public Lab Store's Aerial Photography and Mapping Kits](http://store.publiclab.org/collections/mapping-kits)** **** ## Questions Ask a question about aerial photography [notes:question:aerial-photography] **** ### Design philosophy These tools are being developed to provide a low cost, easy to use, and safe methods for making maps and aerial images. Over the last few years, we’ve built a global community of mappers who are engaged in discussion around the development and use of this tool and others. Normally aerial maps are made from satellites and airplanes. The balloon and kite ground-based approach introduces an on-demand capability where events or environmental conditions are mapped at a specific moment in time. Our community is particularly interested in applying this to civic and environmental issues. Maps are often used by those in power to exert influence over territory, or control territorial narratives. "Grassroots mapping" attempts to invert this dynamic by using maps as a mode of communication and as evidence for an alternative, community-owned definition of a territory. To date, our tools have been used to contest official maps or rhetoric by enabling communities to map sites that are not included in official maps. In Lima Peru, members of an informal settlement developed maps of their community as evidence of their habitation, while on the Gulf Coast of the US, locally produced maps of oil are being used to document damage that is underreported by the state. ...


Author Comment Last activity Moderation
Zemans "Hi. Thanks much. For a HS science project in Bolivia, we are trying to export a map for printing so we can put it on a poster board. Any help would..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
icarito "Hi, I don't think this export was affected by yeterday's outage. The interrupted exports were for other users @justinhall74 and @whallet - I sent i..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
warren "I believe there was an outage yesterday -- when did you run the export? If you link us to the map we can likely help with tweaking the final resolu..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
Bronwen "Welcome, @Zemans ! It looks like you're trying to export something from Mapknitter, yes? " | Read more » over 5 years ago
mathew "@cfastie mentions the most pernicious fact of flying-- once you start collecting equipment you might never stop. That's true for whichever method y..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
cfastie "A GoPro Hero might weigh 150 grams with the protective case. A Hero Session weighs half that. On a static KAP rig the total weight will be 150g to ..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
liz "Adding another idea, perhaps a solar balloon https://publiclab.org/tag/solar-balloon might be interesting for your use case? @mathew makes these, f..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
DevanHarlan "Hi @zengirl2, thanks for the reblog! The rock artwork you may have seen isn't related to the photogrammetry, those are casting of small boulders us..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
zengirl2 "@DevanHarlan ah okay. TY so much for the details as I'm blogging you now on Adafruit. BTW, I think you should add a photo of your finished art as p..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
DevanHarlan "Hi @zengirl2, you're correct, this was not the original balloon that came with the kit, I had used that one a few times already and got new one for..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
zengirl2 "@devanharlan thank you for outlining such a fun experiment and the photos are great. One question--you mention Public Lab's Neoprene balloon, but w..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
liz "hi @DevanHarlan , would you say that the second pair of location tags you added is more accurate? if so, please delete your first pair in order to ..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
DevanHarlan "Hi @stevie, thanks for the star :) added a location tag, but this may be helpful also: https://goo.gl/maps/5pWD6UEu2y42 " | Read more » over 5 years ago
stevie "Great post. Where was this mapping exactly? It would be great to tag it with the new location feature! " | Read more » over 5 years ago
liz "Wow gorgeous images and models!!!! " | Read more » over 5 years ago
stevie "@stevie awards a barnstar to DevanHarlan for their awesome contribution! " | Read more » over 5 years ago
DevanHarlan "Chris, Thanks for the notes, appreciate that! I should clarify, this was my second flight with this rig and these cameras. A year prior I had done..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
cfastie "This is a terrific result for one of your first flights. The photography is very high quality because of the good decisions you made. If this is yo..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
DevanHarlan "Balloon Mapping at the Amboy Crater, CA. Photogrammetry produced with Autodesk Recap, Student Edition. Rendered with Cinema 4D R18 " | Read more » over 5 years ago
DevanHarlan " Photogrammetry produced from the flight over Joshua Tree, Desert View Conservation Area, using student edition of Autodesk Recap. " | Read more » over 5 years ago
DevanHarlan "Ballon Mapping and Photogrammetry tests conducted September 2017 at the Desert View Conservation Area (section) adjacent to Joshua Tree National Pa..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
DevanHarlan " (Inflating and preparing for launch with Steven Ruiz, pictured) " | Read more » over 5 years ago
xose "Fantastic jeff! Really high def zoom! I saw your answer. I'll go cloning ;=) " | Read more » over 5 years ago
warren "I used a Mac plugin to bookletize it but it's also possible with Ghostscript on the command line. " | Read more » over 5 years ago