iPhone/GoPro Mount Mashup
We’ve had some success using the iPhone for aerial imaging from kites, balloons, and quads, so I’ve been looking for a way to mount one to our new Phantom’s GoPro mounting base plate. A quick search of http://thingiverse.com returned this GoPro-compatible iPhone case created by N3W0NE (CC BY-NC-SA). I printed it out on our new Printrbot, and while it technically fits, it needs a little adjustment to be ideal for our situation.  Most GoPro and iPhone users want to mount cameras facing forward, but ours needs to be pointing straight down, which sometimes doesn’t quite work – various mounts and housings get in the way.  For this model to work correctly for our needs, it needs to be tweaked so that the GoPro mount bit is on the short edge of the iPhone.  Not a big deal, and I’m grateful that communities like Thingiverse exist, and that folks are willing to share their work.

thingiverse_contact_card

iPhone KAP

The weather was pretty good for KAP yesterday, with variable ground level winds somewhere in the 2-5 mph range, so we took the 9′ delta down to the wetlands north of the college to test out the new iPhone rig.  Gathered two hundred or so shots using Timelapse, a very useful app, and worth every penny of the $4.99 asking price. Unfortunately, I misaligned the iPhone within the protective bucket, such that each image contained a bit of the edge of said bucket.  As a result, I had to run a Photoshop action to crop the images, losing a bit of data in the process.  Nevertheless, I was able to stitch together some of the best photos using both Photoshop and MapKnitter, which I’ve mentioned before:

MapKnitter is a free and open source tool for combining and positioning images in geographic space into a composite image map. Known as “orthorectification” or “georectification” to geographers, this step covers the process of figuring out where images can be placed on an existing map, and how they can be combined, or “stitched” together.

With each successful (and unsuccessful) flying session, we’re learning a great deal.  For instance, we’ve added a can of compressed air to the field kit to deal with the inevitable dust that seems to find its way onto the camera, and before the next flight, I’m going to find some sort of ground cloth to use as a relatively clean surface upon which to set up the picavet and rig the camera.  Progress.

Got a message from a colleague at another college. He’s working on mobile tech as it relates to library systems, and wanted to test his system on various devices. Seems to work fine on iOS, Android and RIM. Having these devices in the IC makes R&D so much easier…