Testing Structure From Motion Software II

Let's try to get some real data with some real pictures.

On the last flight, lasting 5 minutes 33 seconds a total of 134 pictures were taken (67 with each camera).

Out of those, 38 were matched to a single scene in VisualSFM:

This time the results are much more better. The shape of the house or the vehicles parked outside can be easily distinguished.

And when combined with CMPMVS:

Also showing produced disparity map and generated ortophoto picture of the scene:

The results look good! Houses, roads, bushes, trees and even separate fields can be distinguished now.

But they could be better still. For one, while focus was locked, the exposure and ISO weren't and the cameras "decided" to take pictures at shutter speed 1/100 s with ISO 80. Manually decreasing the shutter speed and increasing ISO would produce even sharper images.

Secondly, decreasing the time between shots would mean more images and more overlapping matching points. Now the shots were taken at 5 second intervals. This could be reduced to 4 seconds for stereo images.

It could be even reduced down to 2 seconds between pictures if the cameras would take turn taking pictures, but then this would become purely structure from motion reconstruction (as it was here if we can't get the stereo registration to work properly).

Seventh Time in the Air

In in the air again to take some pictures.

The plan was simple. Utilize the battery (3 minutes full throttle or 9 minutes half throttle) to the fullest.

Start with 1 minute of full throttle to get some altitude, 66% or 6 minutes half throttle left. Flay a couple of overpasses for 4 minutes, 2 minutes left at half throttle. Land with remaining battery.

Sadly the plan didn't go quite as planned:

First take off attempt was aborted because one of the wheels snagged on the grass and turned off the runway (here were 10 seconds of full throttle lost). Then the plane didn't get as high as intended, so flying by the visible size, the plane was flown farther then intended (here it took longer to fly back). Add some wind higher up, so when trying to hold the plane as still as possible for the photos produced larger turns.

Long story short, 5 minutes and 33 seconds later the plane landed 3 meters from the runway because it ran out of power to run the motor 20 centimetres off the ground approaching the runway. But the new landing gear held. No pivot over this time, just some torn duct tape.

Much was learned today and if the pictures turn out useful, it was worth it.

And here is the scenic view:

AVI@TOR MK4 SP5

We need pictures! And for that the plane needs an upgrade.

First of, a better landing gear:

Made from a spare PCB board from another project as a base (strong and flexible). To which a set of foam and plastic wheels on flat carbon bracket were mounted.

Attached with duct tape, the landing gear work perfectly. The PCB base bends under load and if there is any excessive force applied it goes to the duct tape which breaks and tears but is easy replaceable.


Only the bent rod holding the wheels to the carbon bracket kept braking from the glue. Quick fix, reinforced with zip-ties instead of just glue for extra strength.

Now the plane is finally ready for the extra weight of the camera mount, without the need to fix the landing gear after every heavy landing.

And second, to take pictures we need to synchronise the cameras! Yes, the board to let the phone control the servos and the cameras (to synchronize GPS data with shots taken) is in the works, but for a quick test lets use what we have:

Just change the firmware from our rc2usb board to output a second long pulse every 5 seconds instead of the PWM for the servo tester.

Now cut up and strip down a couple of cheep mini USB cables to get the connectors, wire up the power lines to the pulse output on the board and run the wires trough the camera stand.

We are now ready to take some high resolution pictures!