Emily J. Sturdivant
Erika E. Lentz
E. Robert Thieler
David P. Remsen
Simon Miner
2017
CSV file of names, times, and locations of images collected by an unmanned aerial system (UAS) flying over Black Beach, Falmouth, Massachusetts on 18 March 2016
1.0
digital text files
data release
DOI:10.5066/F7KW5F04
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center, Woods Hole, MA
U.S. Geological Survey, Coastal and Marine Geology Program
The first link is to the publication landing page. The second link is to the page containing the data.
https://doi.org/10.5066/F7KW5F04
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/59b00e03e4b020cdf7d4db3a
Emily J. Sturdivant
E. Robert Thieler
Erika E. Lentz
David P. Remsen
Simon Miner
2017
Topographic, imagery, and raw data associated with unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flights over Black Beach, Falmouth, Massachusetts on 18 March 2016
1.0
data release
DOI:10.5066/F7KW5F04
Reston, VA
U.S. Geological Survey
Suggested citation: Sturdivant, E.J., Thieler, E.R., Lentz, E.E., Remsen, D.P., and Miner, Simon, 2017, Topographic, imagery, and raw data associated with unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flights over Black Beach, Falmouth, Massachusetts on 18 March 2016: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7KW5F04.
https://doi.org/10.5066/F7KW5F04
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/59a05400e4b038630d030442
Imagery acquired with unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and coupled with structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry can produce high-resolution topographic and visual reflectance datasets that rival or exceed lidar and orthoimagery. These new techniques are particularly useful for data collection of coastal systems, which requires high temporal and spatial resolution datasets. The U.S. Geological Survey worked in collaboration with members of the Marine Biological Laboratory and Woods Hole Analytics at Black Beach, in Falmouth, Massachusetts to explore scientific research demands on UAS technology for topographic and habitat mapping applications. This project explored the application of consumer-grade UAS platforms as a cost-effective alternative to lidar and aerial/satellite imagery to support coastal studies requiring high-resolution elevation or remote sensing data. A small UAS was used to capture low-altitude photographs and GPS devices were used to survey reference points. These data were processed in an SfM workflow to create an elevation point cloud, an orthomosaic image, and a digital elevation model.
These image locations are provided for use with the referenced images in creating an elevation model for Black Beach, Falmouth, Massachusetts.
For more information regarding field activity 2016-010-FA, see https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fan=2016-010-FA.
20160318
ground condition
None planned
-70.64515436
-70.63977431
41.58691575
41.58263575
USGS Metadata Identifier
USGS:59b00e03e4b020cdf7d4db3a
None
U.S. Geological Survey
USGS
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
WHCMSC
Coastal and Marine Geology Program
CMGP
aerial images
unmanned aerial system
UAS
drone
ground control point
targets
field activity number 2016-010-FA
Airborne imagery
DJI Phantom 3
ISO 19115 Topic Category
location
USGS Thesaurus
aerial photography
geospatial datasets
None
Atlantic Ocean
Cape Cod
Barnstable
Massachusetts
Falmouth
Black Beach
Great Sippewissett Marsh
Great Sippewissett Inlet
Buzzards Bay
none
Public domain data from the U.S. Government are freely redistributable with proper metadata and source attribution. Please recognize the U.S. Geological Survey as the originator of the dataset.
U.S. Geological Survey
Emily J. Sturdivant
mailing and physical address
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
Massachusetts
02543-1598
USA
508-548-8700 x2230
508-457-2310
esturdivant@usgs.gov
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/file/get/59b00e03e4b020cdf7d4db3a/?name=bb20160318_UAS_imagelocations_browse.png
Map of image locations represented as white squares along the gray flight path with context maps of the area on the left side.
PNG
Camera position at the time of image capture were acquired through GPS and GLONASS positioning. Geographic coordinates are referenced to WGS 84 and altitudes are in feet above mean sea level. Consistency checks were performed by comparing the images with the camera positions projected over a map of the study area. All information was found to agree. Image filenames take the form of nnnnnnnFA__fnncnn_yyyymmddThhmmssZ_DJI_nnnn.JPG, where nnnnnnnFA is the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center’s field activity number; fnncnn is the flight number and camera number specific to the survey; yyyymmddThhmmssZ is the date and time (UTC) in format year, month, day, T, hours, minutes, seconds; and DJI_nnnn is the original filename.
An entry and position is provided for every image present in the UAS images dataset.
Horizontal camera position at the time of image capture was acquired through GPS and GLONASS positioning. Horizontal locations are nominally accurate to approximately 3 feet, but may be off by as much as 10 feet.
Vertical camera position at the time of image capture was acquired through GPS and GLONASS positioning. Vertical locations are less accurate than horizontal positions, nominally accurate to about 5 feet.
A DJI Phantom 3 Professional quadcopter with onboard camera, which uses a Sony EXMOR 1/2.3" sensor, was operated through a tablet computer for flight programming and control. The flight was conducted by Simon Miner of Woods Hole Analytics using Maps Made Easy (MME; https://www.mapsmadeeasy.com; Automotive Data Research) for route design and automated flight programming, including camera shutter control and vehicle return for battery replacement. Photographs were collected in JPEG format by the built-in camera on the DJI and capture information was stored in the accompanying Exchangeable Image File (EXIF). The approximate camera position at the time of each photograph was measured by a GPS receiver onboard the UAS and recorded in the image EXIF data. All activities were conducted according to Federal Aviation Administration regulations. Images were collected between approximately 1101 EDT at the most southwestern point and 1129 EDT at the most northeastern point. The survey was timed to correspond to the time of local low tide. Weather conditions included sunny skies, with winds of about 10.3 m/s. The DJI captured an image approximately every 20 meters in 15 east-west transects spaced 30 m apart at an altitude of 35 m (115 feet). This design ensured an image resolution of 2.5 cm and an overlap of 80 percent between photos. The images were downloaded from the camera on the day of flight.
20160318
U.S. Geological Survey
Emily J. Sturdivant
Geographer
mailing and physical address
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
Massachusetts
02543-1598
508-548-8700 x2230
508-457-2310
esturdivant@usgs.gov
A Python version 2.7 script was run to extract GPS data from the image headers and format the output CSV table. The script used ExifTool (version 10.43) with the following command was used to create the CSV:
exiftool -csv -filename -DateTimeOriginal -GPSLongitude -GPSLatitude -GPSAltitude -n imagedirectory > bb20160318_UAS_imagelocations.csv
The path to the image directory was substituted for 'imagedirectory' in the command. The -csv flag writes the information out in a comma-delimited format. The -n option formats the latitude and longitude as signed decimal degrees. The DateTimeOriginal tag was used because the GPS time was not recorded in the EXIF data by the UAS.
The table output by ExifTool was reformatted and the fields Easting and Northing were added. This involved converting the datetime from Eastern Daylight time to UTC (added 4 hours) and then splitting the values into dates and times. Then, fields SourceFile and DateTimeOriginal were removed. Fields GPSLongitude, GPSLatitude, and GPSAltitude were stripped of the 'GPS' prefix and ‘_ft’ was added to the Altitude column label. The longitude and latitude coordinate pairs referenced to WGS84 were converted to easting and northing in UTM Zone 19 North with a datum transformation to NAD83 using the function 'transform' in the Python module 'pyproj' and the values were stored in new columns 'Easting' and 'Northing'. The transformation was performed in Python with the following call, in which lon and lat stand in for the value of longitude and latitude in one row and east and north are the resulting easting and northing in NAD83 UTM Zone 19N:
import pyproj
east, north = pyproj.transform(p1=pyproj.Proj(init='epsg:4326'), p2=pyproj.Proj(init='epsg:26919'), x=lon, y=lat)
20170221
U.S. Geological Survey
Emily J. Sturdivant
Geographer
mailing and physical address
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
Massachusetts
02543-1598
508-548-8700 x2230
508-457-2310
esturdivant@usgs.gov
Added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword.
20200807
U.S. Geological Survey
VeeAnn A. Cross
Marine Geologist
Mailing and Physical
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
MA
02543-1598
508-548-8700 x2251
508-457-2310
vatnipp@usgs.gov
0.000001
0.000001
Decimal degrees
World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84)
WGS 84
6378137
298.257223563
Mean sea level
0.01
feet
Attribute values
bb20160318_UAS_imagelocations.csv
These files contain the time and position at which photos were taken for use with Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry.
U.S. Geological Survey
FileName
Name with extension of the image file in the form nnnnnnnFA__fnncnn_yyyymmddThhmmssZ_DJI_nnnn.JPG, where nnnnnnnFA is the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center’s field activity number; fnncnn is the flight number and camera number specific to the survey; yyyymmddThhmmssZ is the date and time (UTC) in format year, month, day, T, hours, minutes, seconds; and DJI_nnnn is the original filename.
U.S. Geological Survey
character set
Date
Date in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on which the data were recorded in the field in YYYY-MM-DD format.
DJI Phantom 3 camera
2016-03-18
2016-03-18
Time
Time in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) at which the data were recorded in the field in HH:MM:SS format.
DJI Phantom 3 camera
15:01:02
15:29:15
Longitude
Longitude of camera referenced to WGS 1984 in decimal degrees. West longitude is recorded as negative values.
DJI Phantom 3 GPS
-70.64515436
-70.63977431
signed decimal degrees
1.0E-8
Latitude
Latitude of camera referenced to WGS 1984 in decimal degrees.
DJI Phantom 3 GPS
41.58263575
41.58691575
signed decimal degrees
1.0E-8
Altitude_ft
Altitude of camera in approximate feet above mean sea level.
DJI Phantom 3 GPS
115.234
120.609
feet
1.0E-3
Easting
Easting of camera referenced to UTM Zone 19N NAD83 in meters.
U.S. Geological Survey
362871.2669
363313.3234
meters
1.0E-4
Northing
Northing of camera referenced to UTM Zone 19N NAD83 in meters.
U.S. Geological Survey
4604743.377
4605213.57
meters
1.0E-4
The text file contains one header line and 250 additional lines with eight columns of comma-separated values. The header line contains column headings and are defined in the detailed description.
U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase
mailing and physical address
Denver Federal Center, Building 810, Mail Stop 302
Denver
CO
80225
1-888-275-8747
sciencebase@usgs.gov
The data include a CSV of coordinates at which images were collected during a UAS flight and one PNG image with a map indicating locations at which photos were taken. FGDC CSDGM metadata in XML format is also included.
Neither the U.S. Government, the Department of the Interior, the USGS, the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole Analytics, nor any of their employees, contractors, or subcontractors, make any warranty, express or implied, nor assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, nor represent that its use would not infringe on privately owned rights. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the USGS in the use of these data or related materials. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
CSV
The CSV of coordinates at which images were collected during a UAS flight. FGDC CSDGM metadata is also included.
0.033
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/59b00e03e4b020cdf7d4db3a
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/file/get/59b00e03e4b020cdf7d4db3a
https://doi.org/10.5066/F7KW5F04
The first link is to the page containing the data. The second is a direct link to download a zipped file with the data. And the final link is to the publication landing page.
none
The file is plain text with comma-separated-values. It can be read with most editors and spreadsheet programs. The browse graphic is a digital image and can be displayed with most image viewing software.
20211119
U.S. Geological Survey
Emily J. Sturdivant
mailing and physical address
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
Massachusetts
02543-1598
508-548-8700 x2230
508-457-2310
whsc_data_contact@usgs.gov
The metadata contact email address is a generic address in the event the metadata contact is no longer with the USGS or the email is otherwise invalid.
FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata
FGDC-STD-001-1998