Purdue Wildlife Area Mavic 2 Mapping

 Introduction

This covers flights from week 12 through week 14 at the Purdue wildlife area. Both Fieldnotes and deliverables from all the flights are included. The study area was very dynamic as it had changed from going from dormant grass to starting to green. There was a new construction development that was being worked on. And there were multiple controlled burns, and vegetation regrowth after the burns. There is a lot captured in just 3 datasets. 

Week 12

Introduction

This was the first field outing to the Purdue wildlife area this year, the goal was to collect the first dataset. Upon arrival, the ground control points were laid out in the field and the locations were noted in our fieldnote books. Then the teams each flew a mission flight to collect data over the field with a Mavic 2 Pro.

Study Area

The study area was over the southwestern portion of the PWA fields, from the construction site to the fields that were getting ready to be burnt. The salamander tanks were also flown over. The study area is a very dynamic location as there are changes all over from the development of the construction site to the multiple controlled burns in the area.

Metadata

Pilot	Jared Ooms
VO	John Sayer
Aircraft	Mavic 2 Pro
Date	04/07/2021
Altitude	400 feet
Overlap	80%
Sidelap	80%
Sensor Angle	NADIR
Takeoff Time	2:09 PM
Landing Time	2:14 PM
Images Captured	35
Notes	*I was not present due to being in Quarantine

Maps

Figure 1. Map of PWA captured on 4/7/2021

 

Week 13

 Introduction:

For week 13 we began by laying out the ground control points, during this time we took photos of each point using Arc Collector. Then we sketched the position of each of the GCPs. Then we planned 2 missions after inspecting the fields and noticing a recently controlled burn in the northern plots. We also noted that there was a decent amount of earth moved on the construction site. For those reasons we made multiple flight plans to take advantage of the changing dataset

Study Area: Describe the study area in terms of where you flew and what you flew over.

We operated 2 separate missions at Purdue Wildlife Area, with the Mavic 2 Pro, we flew over the northern field to collect data on the freshly burned plots. Then we created a second flight plan for the construction site, because this one had a goal of capturing a 3d model, we flew a crosshatch pattern with the gimbal angled to -60 degrees. This was in an attempt to gather a better dataset for creating a hill-shaded DSM.

Metadata

North Field Flights

Pilot	Nicholas Hansen
VO	John Sayer
Aircraft	Mavic 2 Pro
Date	04/14/2021
Altitude	400 feet
Overlap	80%
Sidelap	80%
Sensor Angle	NADIR
Takeoff Time	2:38 PM
Landing Time	2:50 PM
Images Captured	77
Notes

South Field Flights

Pilot	Nicholas Hansen
VO	John Sayer
Aircraft	Mavic 2 Pro
Date	04/14/2021
Altitude	400 feet
Overlap	80%
Sidelap	80%
Sensor Angle	-60 degrees
Takeoff Time	3:04 PM
Landing Time	3:18 PM
Images Captured	158
Notes	Crosshatch flight path

 Maps

Figure 2. The imagery of the burns captured on 4/14

Figure 3. The imagery of the construction captured on 4/14

 

PIX4D point cloud images

Figure 4. Pix4d Point cloud of the Salamander tanks

Figure 5. Pix4D point cloud of the construction Trailers

Figure 6. Pix4d point cloud capture of Dr.Hupys Pickup Truck

Week 14

Introduction: Describe the field outing and the events that occurred

The weather was unfavorable for this field outing, as there was a mix of rain and snow throughout the day, but due to time constraints, this data needed to be collected to finish the set. When we got to the field the ground control points were laid out across the area and Arc Collector was used on various phones to compare the GCP’s accuracy to the phone's GPS accuracy. The resultant can be seen in figure 7. Then the aircraft was flown.

Study Area

The whole Western side of the Purdue Wildlife Area was flown, as our data collection site was expanded after week 13 with the freshly burned fields. For this week, a single flight sufficed as we were not going to be creating a digital surface model of the construction site. The goal of this mission was to collect a final week for a changeover time dataset on the regrowth of a plot that controlled burned, figure 8.

Metadata

Pilot	Red Ooms
VO	John Sayer
Aircraft	Mavic 2 Pro
Date	04/21/2021
Altitude	400 feet
Overlap	80%
Sidelap	80%
Sensor Angle	NADIR
Takeoff Time	2:27
Landing Time	2:33
Images Captured	41
Notes	Precipitation

 

Maps

Figure 7. A comparison of the Accuracy of a phone GPS using Arc collector to a Survey Grade Ground Control Point

Figure 8. Change overtime of the Southern plot that was burned before 4/7/21

Figure 9. Overview of the whole map collected on April 21st