This document discusses developing an aerial workflow for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It covers why organizations are using UAVs, the production and post-production process, and business opportunities. Regulations around airspace are still being developed but test sites are operational. The document also discusses UAV and support software providers, mission planning, image collection, compression, analysis, and distribution. Compression can help manage large volumes of UAV imagery, with lossless compression achieving a 2:1 ratio and lossy compression up to 1000:1. Potential applications include agriculture, search and rescue, emergency response, and data collection.

1. Developing an Aerial Workflow for UAVs
Genie Hays, LizardTech Account Manager

2. Overview
2
•Why UAVs?
•Production
•Post production
•Business opportunities
•Predicted advances and concerns

3. Why UAVs?
3
•Autonomy (potentially)
•Launch and land virtually anywhere
•Endurance
•Potential to reduce acquisition costs

4. 4
Do you plan to use a UAV in the next 5 years?
No 12%
Yes 88%
No
Yes
(blank)

5. Why not UAVs?
5
•Airspace regulation
FAA has yet to provide a structured plan for US Airspace
All six U.S. test sites are now in operation:
ND Department of Commerce, University of Alaska, Nevada,
Texas A&M Univ. – Corpus Christi, Rome, NY (Griffiss Int. Airport),
Virginia Tech
EUROCONTROL has adopted general regulations
•https://www.faa.gov/uas/

6. UAVs and support software
UAV providers
•SenseFly
•Trimble
•AeroVironment
•Boeing
•Many, many more
UAV support software
•Pix4Dmapper
•Trimble TBC
•Photoscan
•Autodesk 123D
•Global Mapper
•Open source tools

7. Mission planning
•What airspace concerns
are in the area?
•What are you trying to
acquire?
•What route will you fly?
•How many passes will
be required?
•How will the device be
recovered?
7

8. Launch/acquisition/recover
8
•Launch
•How much space is required for launch?
•Acquisition
•Typically a grid or back and forth pattern
•How long will the vehicle be airborne?
•Recovery

9. 9
Image production
•Ground control points
•Orthorectification
•Corrects for surface of the earth, tilt of the sensor, etc.
•Correct/warp the image to match known ground control points
•Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
•Georeferencing
•QC

10. 10
Post production
•You’ve got your imagery…now what?
•Storage
•GeoTIFF, MrSID, JPEG 2000, etc.
•Analysis
•Esri, Erdas, QGIS, etc.
•Distribution
•Express Server, Image Server, etc.

11. 11
Image collection
•TBs of imagery collected
•How to store?
•How to display?
•Map projections & reprojection

12. 12
Image Compression
•Will I lose data?
•Will there be distortion?
•Will I have to decompress?

13. 13
Image Compression
•MrSID - fast, efficient images
•5 Terabytes of data in only 250 GB of space
•Instant decode of any region without loading the entire image
•Supported directly in all applications

14. 14
Do you think compression will help manage UAV imagery?
No 24%
Yes 76%
No
Yes
(blank)

15. Compression ratios
15
Original 3.04 GB TIFF
Compressed lossless 2:1 451.8 MB

16. Compression ratios
16
Original 3.04 GB TIFF
Compressed lossy 20:1 114 MB

17. Compression ratios
17
Original 3.04 GB TIFF
Compressed lossy 100:1 22.8 MB

18. Compression ratios
18
Original 3.04 GB TIFF
Compressed 500:1 4.6 MB

19. Compression ratios
19
Original 3.04 GB TIFF
Compressed 1000:1 2.3 MB

20. Compression ratios
20
Compressed 2000:1 1.1 MB
Original 3.04 GB TIFF

21. 21
Image Distribution
•Send or share files directly?
•Doesn’t scale well
•High bandwidth, slow
•Image Servers
•Speed
•Ease of administration
•Scalability
•Cost

22. 22
Image Distribution
•Express Server
•Serves compressed images
•Easy to manage
•Unlimited data and users

23. Business Opportunities
23
•Agricultural
•Search and rescue
•911 Emergency response
•Data collection

24. Advances for UAV
24
•Colorado County Obtains COA to Fly UAS http://blog.lidarnews.com/colorado-county-obtains-coa-to-fly-uas
•Submersibles
•Parachute systems

25. Resources
Rocky Mountain UAS Professionals
http://www.meetup.com/RockyMountainUnmanned/
UAS MAPPING 2014 Reno
ASPRS UAS Technical Demonstration and Symposium
October 21-22, Reno, NV
http://uasreno.org
www.uavs.org
www.faa.gov
25

26. October 7th - Denver workshop
26

27. Thank you
27
Genie Hays 206-902-2811 ghays@lizardtech.com www.lizardtech.com