RapidMap - On-Demand Imaging

Solution

Aerial images and terrain models when you want it, from where you
want it – at affordable costs

by PIEneering Oy
Summary

This paper provides a description of PIEneering’s on-demand, rapid image processing service, RapidMap.
RapidMap combines a light weight unmanned aircraft (UA or UAS) and a web-based image processing
service into a powerful, easy to use system. RapidMap makes the geospatial image acquisition and digital
surface model generation affordable and is flexibly available for a variety of applications. Moreover, this
paper discusses the markets and traditional ways of performing GIS imagery in comparison with the
RapidMap services. It outlines the solutions and technologies applied in RapidMap with some technical
details and concludes with some examples of RapidMap applications.

More details for Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and

planning systems

A picture paints a thousand words. Images of our earth's surface not only enrich our actual knowledge of
the places concerned as geospatial information, but are also the fundamental basis for various planning
tasks and decision making processes. The demand for up-to-date image-based GIS content is growing
rapidly, partly because of the possibilities demonstrated and needs created by services provided by Google,
Nokia and Microsoft. Image-based GIS content is commonly used to complete map data. It can be used to
automatically derive volumes, masses and 3D-views.

In professional use, up-to-date image-based GIS content is preferred for decision-making and making
business processes and operations more rational, efficient and economical. The primary users of image-
based GIS content are security authorities, the infrastructure construction industry, environmental companies
and organisations, the energy and mining industries, companies that manage real estate, the transportation
industry, forestry and agriculture – to mention a few.

These industries need more automated, flexible and cost effective solutions to better serve their own
planning needs. Satellite or aircraft based imaging services of today are weather dependent, have long lead
times, are costly to organize and due to their relatively high altitude are not flexible enough for many needs.
A key problem has always been that the customers cannot select the precise time of acquisition of the image
data, at least not at any reasonable level of expense.

Imaging Services Today – Complex, Expensive

Traditional Image Content Providers

GIS technology is becoming integrated into other information technologies. The use of GIS systems differs
from generic information processing in its spatial content, such as aerial images (ortho images or image
maps). Since the turn of the millennium, image maps have made a breakthrough, especially in connection
with global image map services such as Google Maps and Google Earth.

Traditionally, image maps are derived from aerial photographs or satellite images while 3D terrain elevation
or surface models are more commonly based on laser scanning. Satellite imaging is the domain of national
corporations and a small number of publicly held companies. Basically, anyone can order satellite imaging
services today. Processing an image into a form that is usable for the end user requires expertise. Aerial
photography and laser scanning is performed from an aircraft or a helicopter. Because of the relatively high
altitude, the sky must be clear for aerial photography.

Figure : A digital aerial camera system

A digital aerial photography imaging system or a laser scanner can cost over 1,000,000 EUR. The equipment
required for traditional aerial photography consists of a camera, an aircraft, a pilot, and a photographer – at
minimum. A digital production line for processing the images into end products is a significant investment,
too. These costs have driven the companies that provide aerial imaging services to become global operators
who try to avoid flying missions to small, scattered areas, as the cost structure usually makes such
operations non-profitable. The operators combine orders and photograph areas within the same region in a
single mission, as economically as possible, when the weather permits. Moreover, processing the image data
into a form that is usable for the end user requires specially trained staff and expensive image processing
equipment.

Market development
The market can be expected to accommodate companies that provide affordable, customer-oriented image
map services. ‘Customer-oriented’ refers here, first and foremost, to the ability to respond to customer
requirements regarding the precise time and target area of image data acquisition; the service must be
available on-demand. In practice, this means that the company providing the service must be able to
operate its aircraft with no weather constraints. An UA is an answer to this requirement.

However, compact UAs do not directly compete with traditional imaging systems – i.e., satellite or aerial
systems. PIEneering sees that compact UAs are complementing the market with new offering. A digital
image is always a compromise between ground resolution (pixel size) and system flexibility. A satellite is
capable of mapping large areas on earth, but it can be difficult to determine whether one can receive an
ordered image at all or when it will be delivered. Aerial imaging systems are more flexible and also able to
map larger areas, but there are limitations, as stated above. UAs then can be operated in an extremely
flexible way, but their capability in mapping large areas is limited.
The answer - RapidMap

RapidMap combines a light weight unmanned aircraft (UA) and a web-based image processing service into a
single, integrated system. RapidMap is capable of automatically collecting aerial images and
automatically processing them into image maps and terrain surface models for GIS’s and other planning
systems, such as CADs. Since the unmanned aircraft (UA) system also includes highly integrated
components of hardware and software, we assign it the term UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System). The
RapidMap UAS can be operated by a single person. It introduces and is the first known instance of
commercial “UA-Mapping”.

RapidMap provides the tools needed to establish a new solution that will enable the customer to define the
precise time and target area for acquisition of image data, on demand. In practical terms, this has not been
possible with the traditional methods. Potential applications for the service include monitoring of a
subcontractor's excavation or soil removal activities (infrastructure construction and mining companies),
monitoring stock levels of solid raw materials or raw material production (energy industry), monitoring of
crops, monitoring of forests, simplifying field investigations at traffic accident sites (police), monitoring
restricted areas (frontier guards) and making precisely timed acquisition of image data from selected target
areas feasible (environmental organisations).

The following table outlines the main differences between traditional aerial photography and the RapidMap
services provided by PIEneering.
 PIEneering RapidMap service Service property Traditional aerial mapping services

Flight missions on demand Flexibility Target areas are grouped for a single flight
mission

Small, individual target areas are the core Accessibility Small, individual target areas outside of
of business the business focus

All-weather capable, low flying altitude Weather dependency Cloud-free weather conditions are
prerequisite for operation

Flexible, a single person is able to operate Mobilisation A minimum of two persons, an aircraft and
an expensive imaging system is required

Automatic, web-service based Image processing Special software, robust computing

platform and a trained operator is needed

Very high data accuracy as standard Output data Moderate data accuracy as standard
output output

The key competitive advantage of the service is its independence of weather conditions (i.e. cloudiness) and
the flexibility of operations that results from this capability.

PIEneering is the only company known to offer the complete package: providing an UA, sensor equipment,
control software and image processing capability from a single source – at low cost to reach many users and
industries. Moreover, the image processing service at the core of RapidMap seems to be beyond the scope of
practically all UA manufacturers’ competences.

The products and services

The RapidMap UAS

The RapidMap UAS contains a light weight UA, an auto pilot system, a control unit, a lap top PC and
RapidMission & RapidProof software applications.

A flight mission consists of four phases; pre-flight planning and preparation, take-off, survey and landing.
Pre-flight preparations include specifying mission parameters such as survey area, mission altitude, photo
overlap and resolution requirements etc. The parameters are transferred to the autopilot at power-up using
the wireless data link. After pre-flight check-up and camera setup have been carried out, the aircraft is ready
for launch. At launch the on-board sensors detect the take-off and the aircraft commences a rapid climb to
mission altitude. It then proceeds to the survey area and systematically flies parallel photo strips. The
system automatically senses and compensates for the current wind conditions so that the correct spacing
between exposures is achieved.

Figure: Flight track from a 300 x 300 m survey flight

2
After completion of the survey-phase the UA automatically returns and circles above the take-off point until
the pilot either commands an automatic landing or takes over to perform a precision landing. The figure
above depicts a flight track plot from a typical mission. A 300 x 300 m2 area was surveyed from 150 m
altitude using 8 parallel strips and two cross-strips. The total flight time was just over 12 minutes.

During the flight mission the autopilot’s datalog is downloaded to the PC using the RapidMission software.
After the flight mission the images are copied from the camera’s flash memory card to the laptop. The
mission's quality control software is used to assess the quality of the flight.

After the quality check, the operator is able to compute a RapidProof fully automatically. A RapidProof is a
geo-referenced, full resolution image mosaic, but with no full radiometric and geometric corrections applied
to it. Quality wise, it serves as an entry level geo-referenced documentation of a flight mission and can be
used for basic inventory and inspection purposes.

With the RapidMap UAS an operator is able to

• execute UA flight missions and

• deliver RapidProofs to end customers
The value of the image processing web services for the user (operator) is that the user does not have to
have any knowledge of how to generate a geo-referenced image map or a terrain surface model as the pro-
cessing is fully automatic. This feature of the RapidMap service offering is truly unique and often considered
hard-to-believe when presented. An operator who acquires the UAS for professional use typically signs for a
maintenance package for the UAS, enabling the operator to use RapidMap on-line image data computing
services, spare parts service and other services.

Image processing services on the web

Image processing services are services on the internet. With the service, an Ortho Mosaic is processed from
the raw images into a map-like image and appears as if it originated from one single image capturing
moment. The most sophisticated radiometric and geometric corrections and filtering are applied to the data.
State-of-the-art photogrammetric technology is also used to automatically generate Ortho Mosaics and
surface models. This includes feature based, area based and object based image matching techniques as
well as sensor and system modelling techniques together with optimized image capturing methods.

An Ortho Mosaic is typically used in a GIS or a CAD as a background image, onto which plans and models
are overlaid. The raster image background data and vector data in foreground must fit spatially with high
accuracy. This requires high planimetric accuracy from the image data. As a comparison, an Air Image
cannot meet these requirements of professional users.

With a typical mission altitude of 200m above ground level (AGL) and a 10-12 Mpix calibrated camera, the
resulting pixel size in the derived Ortho Mosaic, or ground sampling distance (GSD) of the ortho, is 10 cm,.
From 100 m AGL the corresponding GSD is 5 cm. The internal precision of the Ortho Mosaic in X and Y
(measured planar distances) is typically better than 10 cm and thus within the sub-pixel magnitude of the
GSD. The precision of computed heights is better than 20 cm. With the addition of accurate ground control,
sub-decimeter accuracy can be achieved in both position and altitude.
Figure: RapidMap Ortho Mosaic consisting of 211 aerial source images

A Digital Surface Model (DSM) is a numeric representation of the earth ground surface. A DSM
represents a digital “rubber skin” of the existing surface. This is the preferred surface model from Ortho
Mosaics. If a DSM is calculated from the same target area repeatedly, a GIS professional (preferably an
operator) is able to calculate volume differences, which is valuable information for example for energy,
infrastructure construction or pit mine industry.

Figure: Digital surface model with draped Ortho Mosaic, railroad construction site
For Ortho Mosaics and DSMs, the users upload the raw image, GPS and camera data into the service,
validate the data and set the project into the RapidMap processing queue. When the processing is finished,
the user gets the download instructions via e-mail.

Image on-line service

Image On-line service is a content management and image viewing service for end users, who want to
archive and organize their projects and view the image data content in their GIS as an industry standard
WMS services (Web Map Service). With the service, an end user is able to organize (typically high volume)
image archives on a project basis for RapidMap servers and outsource the internal image data distribution at
the customer’s organization, as no physical data files have to be managed or copied.

Professional services

PIEneering provides professional services throughout the value chain. Professional services are provided as
chargeable customer projects, such as designing and implementing demanding imaging applications,
creating customer-specific on-line services, or implementing and administering entire service platforms (for
customers such as security authorities).

The PIEneering's RapidMap Simplifies Complexity - On-Demand

Traditional GIS image content services are inflexible, often costly and sometimes not accurate enough –
surely not capable of monitoring project progress on a local basis, on demand. With the introduction of
modern compact UAS platforms and photogrammetric processing services, a totally new, flexible imaging
concept has become possible.

PIEneering's key innovation is a seamlessly functioning on-demand service concept, combining an UAS with
image processing services on-line, thus enabling customers to save both time and money. This service
concept has been developed as a unified system from the ground up, in a move from a technological
approach towards a customer-oriented philosophy. The fundamentals of our business are:

• PIEneering's service concept, which makes acquisition of image-based GIS content possible with no
expertise in UA aviation, photogrammetry, image processing or information technologies required, is
the only one of its kind currently available.

• The core of the service model is the on-line image data processing service. The model utilizes
Internet connectivity, follows the software industry's current trend towards cloud computing, can be
marketed on a global scale and is applicable to all customer industries.

PIEneering has already completed projects and provided test cases related to infrastructure construction,
garden/park construction (golf courses), the energy industry, waste management, forestry and agriculture,
security, the gaming industry, and the environmental sector.

For a low cost, on-demand test project and price information, contact info@pieneering.fi.