This project was undertaken in March 2023, with a briefing to collect geo-tagged imagery and video along specified transects over a shallow lake. These will be used as a condition assessment baseline.

The technical challenge was developing repeatable flight paths between specific coordinate pairs. Drone control software often permits this type of flight based on guessing coordinates by pointing and clicking on a map. To ensure precise mission parameters, plans were developed by programming them using the underlying flight control templating language. This ensures that any future flights can follow the same paths exactly, within the GPS accuracy envelope of the aircraft system.

Data were collected using a Parrot ANAFI thermal and Parrot ANAFI 4K, chosen due to portability and reliability – much of this work was done on foot, walking to site. A full description is here: https://www.spatialised.net/image-transects-for-ecological-assessment/