The Development of Aerial Photography Application Based on Aerial Images Captured From a Remote Control Airplane

Abstract

This paper shows that we can obtain aerial scenes faster, cheaper, safer, and easier using a reasonable resolution camera and a remote control airplane (RC plane). RC plane can fl y low, thus able to capture aerial images from low altitude. It is shown here the method of generating a digital scene from such images. We begin with capturing aerial images for selected locations within Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) campus using RC plane. These images have been stitched together to create the campus scene. A few scenes were then collected to create the UUM Digital Aerial Scenes (UUM-DAS) prototype. The resulting prototype enables viewers to explore the campus virtually from a of bird’s eye view, with the altitude of about 150 to 200 metres. Similar approach of obtaining DAS can be generalised for marketing strategy, farm management, map disaster locations, map landscapes, monitor construction sites and progress, advertise property, and for viewing archaeological arttifacts.