What is to Come

I think for a while I will switch gears and focus on the history of aerial photography in it's early stages up till about the end of WWII.  Pigeon photography fascinates me and so like subjects will be the focus for a short while.  

How to use pidgeons in aerial photography.

1. Strap a camera on to a pigeon.

2. Make sure you know it's flight path and speed.

3. Set camera to take pictures at regular intervals.

Well, if only it were that easy.  Amazingly enough it has been done before.  Generally when we think of an aerial platform, we assume it is going to be a helicopter, UAV, or some form of fixed wing aircraft.  Historically speaking, aerial photography has been around as long as Wilbur and Orville Wright and even longer.  One of the methods used was actually pigeons.  In fact "in 1903, Dr. Julius Neubronner patented a miniature pigeon camera activated by a timing mechanism. Equipped with the cameras, the pigeons photographed a castle in Kronberg, Germany, around 1908" (http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/lae/SCRIPT/be_first2.htm).

The basics of this would involve knowing the pigeons flight path, the speed at which the pidgeon flies, and maybe the altitude of the bird.  As was demonstrated, it would then be possible to take photos at certain time intervals.  I found a lot of info just by googling pigeon aerial photography.  Give it a look, it is quite interesting.

'Up in the Air's' aerial shots took some ingenuity -- latimes.com

The Photography is just beautiful, check it out.

'Up in the Air's' aerial shots took some ingenuity -- latimes.com

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Local Weather Report

Check out the Local Accuweather Weather in the weather widget and you will notice that aerial survey is near impossible here in the southwest.  One of the things to consider when planning a mapping mission is how much visibility is required to complete a mission properly.  Not only is the visibility less than three miles, the cloud base in most of the southwest is about 2000 feet above the ground.  To complicate matters, if ground visibility is important at the time of the mission (and it usually is), then the ground is almost all white today due to continued snowfall.  That makes finding those white ground control points slightly difficult, and aerial photography nearly impossible.

Welcome to the Aerial Mapping & Aviation Methods and Technologies Blog.

Welcome to the Aerial Mapping Aviation Methods and Technologies Blog. I hope you find this blog of interest in the fields of Aerial Mapping, Photogrammetry, surveying, GIS, and many more subjects along this line of thought to also include aviation safety. We will discuss the mapping industry, its methods, history, and technology and how it affects us in our daily lives. We will look at many interesting diversions in many different formats. I am glad you could join me, and hope you find it informative