Eighth Annual EWB-USA International Conference in Louisville, Kentucky March 24-26, 2011

1. Simple, inexpensive aerial photography mapping
Project Data
•Chapter: EWB-USA San Francisco Professionals
•Project: Simple, Inexpensive Aerial Photography Mapping with Balloons,
Kites or R/C aircraft
•Location: Various In April 2010, Deepwater Horizon rig
•Project phase: Demonstrated technology, available for chapters to use in exploded and sank in the Gulf of Port Sulphur Wilkinson Bay imaging Stitch of the oil spill at Chandeleur
their projects Mexico - volunteer aerial mapping by the LA Bucket Brigade/Gonzo Earth Islands by Jeff Warren
•Cost: As little as $100 for a complete mapping kit Community maps in Lima teams documented the spill (image by
•Contact: Patrick Coyle, pat@coyles.com, belizeopensource.org Peru, Jeff Warren with children LA Bucket Brigade/Gonzo Earth)
•Professional partners: and adults in community
• Jeff Warren, Grassroots Mapping; grassrootsmapping.org
Gulf oil spill mapping approach
• Stewart Long, Gonzo Earth: gonzoearth.com
•Participants visit an affected area, fill a balloon or prepare a kite
•Partner organizations in local communities:
depending on wind conditions, and send the camera in its
• Louisiana Bucket Brigade, labucketbrigade.org
homemade protective enclosure up to 2000 feet in the air
• Belize Open Source - Sustainable Development, belizeopensource.org
•By walking along the beach or moving in a boat, several kilometers
•Name of significant donors or contributors: Numerous, see lower right
of coastline may be imaged in just a few hours
image with names
•Between May 7 and July 22, 2010, dozens of participants made 36
trips to gather mapping data, averaging almost one trip every other
day
•Only one trip failed to return with imagery, 56% of the trips
returned with "excellent" or "usable" data, and over 11,000 images
were taken
•The maps use orthorectified photographs of key affected sites
Project Description processed into GeoTIFFs and tiled map services (TMS) - the public
domain photographs, taken from balloons or kites, are among the
A complete grassroots mapping kit by Jeff LA Bucket Brigade volunteers map with highest resolution imagery available of the spill
Aerial photomaps can be very useful to EWB chapters for community,
site and project planning; agricultural/ ecological planning and Warren balloons and kites •Two different manual processing methods have accounted for the
evaluation bulk of the mapping for Grassroots Mapping
•This poster shows how to make simple inexpensive aerial photomaps. grassrootsmapping.org to date:
This approach was presented and demonstrated at the EWB West •Gonzo Earth Image Processing is a workflow of different
Coast Regional Workshop in October 2010 commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and open-source GIS and digital
•What’s needed: equipment, software, supplies, materials image software packages, which has been used to generate dozens
•digital camera with ability to take photos automatically of maps from balloons, kites, remote controlled and manned
•GPS unit with tracking and logging capability (where needed) aircraft
•A package to house the camera and GPS unit •The Cartagen Knitter software consists of a free web-based
•Balloon or kite with enough lift capability to carry the camera, GPS interface for users to upload and rectify images from a web browser
unit, housing and sufficient tether line to reach height of interest for the •Both export finished maps in standard formats including GeoTIFF
photographs (or R/C aircraft) and TMS, to be viewed in common GIS tools and integration into
•A safe approach to use the process in the field existing workflows
•Capability to process the data and present the results
•An approach to discuss and use the results
•This poster points to web resources and an on-line Illustrated Guide
•Examples are shown from community of users Belize Open Source plans to R/C aircraft testing in
•We’ll demonstrate – let’s go fly! use these techniques with San Diego with pilot
•Stop by after – see results, Q&A EWB chapters, schools and John Shultz
•Get Involved at grassrootsmapping.org communities in Belize
Mestia, in Georgia: map spans
•See the Wiki for techniques and tools, case studies
5.5 kms, Jeff Warren with local
•Participate: join the Mailing List!
OpenMapsCaucasus staff and
•Start a grassroots mapping project today!
participating students
•Apply techniques to your project