Low-altitude aerial imagery obtained with unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flights over Black Beach, Falmouth, Massachusetts on 18 March 2016 (JPEG images)

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 camera model is FC300X with a lens F-number of f/2.8. All images had dimensions of 4000 x 3000 pixels x 24 bits and were saved in JPEG format. 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.

ExifTool (version 10.43) was run to write standard distribution information to the headers of each full-resolution JPEG image. The following tags were populated in the JPEG image headers. Information is duplicated in some tags. Multiple, overlapping tags are employed to make the images work in a variety of software packages. Every image in this collection was populated with the same content for the following tags. The tag name and content is listed with the tag type below:
JPEG tags:

Comment: Low-altitude aerial photograph of Black Beach, Falmouth, MA from survey 2016-010-FA (https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fa=2016-010-FA).

EXIF tags:

ImageDescription: Low-altitude aerial photograph of Black Beach, Falmouth, MA from survey 2016-010-FA (https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fa=2016-010-FA).
Artist: Woods Hole Analytics, in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey
Copyright: Public Domain. Please credit Woods Hole Analytics, in collaboration with Marine Biological Laboratory and the U.S. Geological Survey

IPTC tags:

Credit: Woods Hole Analytics, in collaboration with Marine Biological Laboratory and the U.S. Geological Survey
Contact: WHSC_data_contact@usgs.gov
Keywords: Black Beach, Great Sippewissett Marsh, Falmouth, Massachusetts, 2016-010-FA, UAS, nadir, USGS
CopyrightNotice: Public Domain. Please credit Woods Hole Analytics, in collaboration with Marine Biological Laboratory and the U.S. Geological Survey
Caption-Abstract:  Low-altitude aerial photograph of Black Beach, Falmouth, MA from survey 2016-010-FA (https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fa=2016-010-FA).

2015 XMP tags:

Caption: Low-altitude aerial photograph of Black Beach, Falmouth, MA from survey 2016-010-FA (https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fa=2016-010-FA).

Also using ExifTool, the original filename (e.g. DJI_0001.jpg) was written to the EXIF tag OriginalFileName. Once the original filename was saved, the image files were renamed to the format 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.
To extract the information from the image headers using ExifTool, the following command can be used (tested with ExifTool version 9.4.6.0): exiftool.exe -csv -f -filename -DateTimeOriginal -GPSLongitude -GPSLatitude -n -Artist -Credit -comment –Contact -keywords -Caption -Copyright -CopyrightNotice -Caption-Abstract -ImageDescription *.jpg > out.csv The -csv flag writes the information out in a comma-delimited format. The -n option formats the latitude and longitude as signed decimal degrees.

Added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword.