HD aerial video for coastal zone ecological mapping

Abstract

The paper discusses a recent test of using High Definition (HD) video camera to obtain aerial mapping images for coastal zone study. Real-Time GPS was used to capture the ground control. It was revealed that the vibration from the aircraft has an adverse effect on the video footage. Consequently, each video frame was deinterlaced to obtain the odd and even fields as sub-frames. Deinterlacing removes the effect of aircraft vibration; however the process reduces the video frame format size to a sub-frame size which is a half of the original format size. The video camera was calibrated at full format size so the image must be rebuilt to full format size in order to achieve the required spatial accuracy. Tests show that the stereo-digitized 3D coordinate of beach features is similar to still-frame digital images at the same flying height. Because videoing does not require precise exposure timing as in the case of still-frame photography, HD video has a vey important advantage over conventional still-frame aerial photography for aerial mapping.