Geotagged low-altitude aerial imagery from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flights over of the Lake Ontario shoreline in the vicinity of Sodus Bay, New York, in July 2017

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Frequently anticipated questions:

What does this data set describe?

Title:
Geotagged low-altitude aerial imagery from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flights over of the Lake Ontario shoreline in the vicinity of Sodus Bay, New York, in July 2017
Abstract:
Low-altitude (80-100 meters above ground level) digital images were obtained from a camera mounted on a 3DR Solo quadcopter, a small unmanned aerial system (UAS), along the Lake Ontario shoreline in New York during July 2017. These data were collected to document and monitor effects of high lake levels, including shoreline erosion, inundation, and property damage in the vicinity of Sodus Bay, New York. This data release includes images tagged with locations determined from the UAS GPS; tables with updated estimates of camera positions and attitudes based on the photogrammetric reconstruction; tables listing locations of the base stations, ground control points, and transect points; geolocated, RGB-colored point clouds; orthomosaic images; and digital elevation models for each of the survey regions. Collection of these data was supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the State of New York Departments of State and Environmental Conservation, and the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program and was conducted under USGS field activity number 2017-042-FA.
Supplemental_Information:
For more information about this field activity, see https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fan=2017-042-FA. Photogrammetric processing using ground control points produces estimates of camera location and attitude (roll, pitch, and yaw) with much higher accuracies. Tables containing position and attitude estimates derived from photogrammetric post-processing are available in this data release, and are considered to have better positional accuracy than the GPS information provided in the EXIF headers in the images in this dataset. These photographs are the source for the photogrammetric products are grouped according to region and flight number. Flights 23-27 were acquired on July 12 and are used in the Lake Bluffs project. Flights 28-35 were acquired on July 13. However, flights 27-30 are included in the Charles Point project, and flights 31-35 are in the Sodus North Project. Flights 36-40 were acquired on July 14 and are used in the Greig Street Project.
  1. How might this data set be cited?
    U.S. Geological Survey, 2018, Geotagged low-altitude aerial imagery from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flights over of the Lake Ontario shoreline in the vicinity of Sodus Bay, New York, in July 2017: data release DOI:10.5066/P9XQYCD0, U.S. Geological Survey, Coastal and Marine Geology Program, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center, Woods Hole, MA.

    Online Links:

    This is part of the following larger work.

    Sherwood, Christopher R., Brosnahan, Sandra M., Ackerman, Seth D., Borden, Jonathan, Montgomery, Ellyn T., Pendleton, Elizabeth A., and Sturdivant, Emily J., 2018, Aerial imagery and photogrammetric products from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flights over the Lake Ontario shoreline at Sodus Bay, New York, July 12 to 14, 2017: data release DOI:10.5066/P9XQYCD0, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Suggested citation: Sherwood, C.R., Brosnahan, S.M., Ackerman, S.D., Borden, Jonathan, Montgomery, E.T., Pendleton, E.A., and Sturdivant, E.J., 2018, Aerial imagery and photogrammetric products from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flights over the Lake Ontario shoreline at Sodus Bay, New York, July 12 to 14, 2017: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9XQYCD0.
  2. What geographic area does the data set cover?
    West_Bounding_Coordinate: -76.9872
    East_Bounding_Coordinate: -76.935
    North_Bounding_Coordinate: 43.2779
    South_Bounding_Coordinate: 43.2647
  3. What does it look like?
    https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/file/get/5b1ee15ce4b092d965254a57/?name=2017042FA_SodusBay_Photos_browse.jpg (JPEG)
    example of an aerial image from field activity 2017-042-FA
  4. Does the data set describe conditions during a particular time period?
    Beginning_Date: 12-Jul-2017
    Ending_Date: 14-Jul-2017
    Currentness_Reference:
    ground condition
  5. What is the general form of this data set?
    Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form: remote-sensing image
  6. How does the data set represent geographic features?
    1. How are geographic features stored in the data set?
      This is a Raster data set. It contains the following raster data types:
      • Dimensions 3264 x 4352, type Pixel
    2. What coordinate system is used to represent geographic features?
      Horizontal positions are specified in geographic coordinates, that is, latitude and longitude. Latitudes are given to the nearest 0.000001. Longitudes are given to the nearest 0.000001. Latitude and longitude values are specified in Decimal degrees. The horizontal datum used is D_WGS_1984.
      The ellipsoid used is WGS_1984.
      The semi-major axis of the ellipsoid used is 6378137.0.
      The flattening of the ellipsoid used is 1/298.257224.
      Vertical_Coordinate_System_Definition:
      Altitude_System_Definition:
      Altitude_Datum_Name: IGS08 (EPOCH:2017.8707)
      Altitude_Resolution: 0.01
      Altitude_Distance_Units: meters
      Altitude_Encoding_Method: Attribute values
  7. How does the data set describe geographic features?
    Entity_and_Attribute_Overview:
    There are no additional attributes besides the tags described in data quality section associated with these images.
    Entity_and_Attribute_Detail_Citation: USGS Field Activity 2017-042-FA

Who produced the data set?

  1. Who are the originators of the data set? (may include formal authors, digital compilers, and editors)
    • U.S. Geological Survey
  2. Who also contributed to the data set?
  3. To whom should users address questions about the data?
    U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: Sandra Brosnahan
    Physical Scientist
    384 Woods Hole Road
    Woods Hole, Massachusetts

    508-548-8700 x2265 (voice)
    508-457-2310 (FAX)
    sbrosnahan@usgs.gov

Why was the data set created?

These images were collected along the Lake Ontario shoreline in the vicinity of Sodus Bay, NY for the purposes of documenting and monitoring lake level change impacts to the lake shoreline. These overlapping aerial images are used within photogrammetric processing software to create point clouds, regional orthomosaics, and digital elevation models.

How was the data set created?

  1. From what previous works were the data drawn?
    geotagged images (source 1 of 1)
    U.S. Geological Survey, unpublished material, Field geotagged aerial imagery (or whatever title you want).

    Type_of_Source_Media: raster digital images
    Source_Contribution:
    These are the images geotagged in the field and used to produce the subsequent photogrammetric products. The images available from the larger work citation of this data release have updated geotag information. JPEG photographs from each of the UAS flights were downloaded from the Ricoh camera and saved according to the flight number (which is approximately the duration of one UAS battery lifespan (maximum 15 minutes). One telemetry log for the UAS that contains position in x,y,z, time, pitch, roll, yaw, course, and mode (saved in .tlog, .kmz, .gpx, and .csv format) and one folder of photos exists for each successful flight.
  2. How were the data generated, processed, and modified?
    Date: Jul-2017 (process 1 of 3)
    The Ricoh GRII HD camera used on the UAS acquires photos at 16.2 Megapixels, with file sizes generally between 4 and 6 MB on disc, depending on image complexity. Photos were collected with an ISO between 200 and 640, shutter speeds between 1/500 and 1/1000, and an apera ture between 3.5 and 4.5. Ricoh cameras do no contain an internal GPS, and an external GPS mounted on the UAS is used to add geopositioning information during post-processing (described later). The camera was mounted on a 3DR Solo quadcopter unmanned aerial system (UAS; FAA number- FA3R4LWWY9) for each flight. Flights were flown along pre-planned lines and lasted the duration of the UAS battery life (maximum 15 minutes) or until the flight was completed or aborted. The camera was set to record images at 2-second intervals, activated before takeoff, and deactivated after landing. Preflight photos of UTC time displayed on a smartphone accurate timepiece were captured with the camera and used to monitor camera clock drift. Camera time and UTC time were never different (to a 1 second accuracy) during this survey. However, the GPS data was processed in local (EST) time and the camera was recording in UTC, therefore a 14400 second correction was applied (explained in the next process step). Person who carried out this activity:
    U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
    Attn: Christopher R. Sherwood
    Research Oceanographer
    384 Woods Hole Road
    Woods Hole, Massachusetts
    U.S.A.

    508-548-8700 x2269 (voice)
    508 457 2310 (FAX)
    csherwood@usgs.gov
    Date: 22-Aug-2017 (process 2 of 3)
    The JPEG images were geotagged by adding location information to standard GPS tags (GPSLatitude, GPSLatitudeRef, GPSLongitude, GPSLongitudeRef, GPSAltitude, GPSTimeStamp, GPSDateStamp) in the EXIF headers. Image descriptions, Artist credit, Copyright, caption information, keywords, and credits/origin tags were also added, and the images were renamed. All of the following process steps were conducted by the same person using pyExifToolGUI (version 0.50), ExifTools (version: 10.61), and Namexif (version 1.7).
    1. Telemetry logs recorded in Mission Planner software (version 1.3.49) and saved as GPX files were used in pyExifToolGUI to geotag the JPEG photos. PyExifTool provides a graphical frontend for ExifTools and only requires 3 user inputs to complete geotagging the raw photos. Geotagging was completed per flight since there was a single .gpx file and image folder file per flight. In pyExifTool under the 'Edit Data' tab, Geotagging is selected and the user supplies the folder containing the images to be geotagged, the GPS log file (a GPX file for this survey), and a Geosync time to account for any offset between the GPS and camera. A Geosync time of -14400 sec was supplied here for all 2017-042-FA flights, because GPS time was processed in EST, which is 4 hours or 14400 sec behind UTC time. There was no other 'time drift' difference noted during the survey between the camera and the GPS clocks.
    2. After all the JPEG photos were geotagged in pyExifToolGUI, ExifTools was used to update several additional tags for all the photos. The updated tags include: -CopyrightNotice, -ImageDescription, -Caption-Abstract, -Caption, -keywords, -comment, -Credit, -Contact, -Artist
    JPEG tags: 
    Comment: Photographs of the Lake Ontario shoreline, Sodus Bay vicinity, New York, USA from survey 2017-042-FA.
    EXIF tags: 
    ImageDescription: Photographs of the Lake Ontario shoreline, Sodus Bay vicinity, New York, USA from survey 2017-042-FA.
Artist: Sandy Brosnahan
Copyright: Public Domain - please credit U.S. Geological Survey
    IPTC tags: 
    Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
Contact: WHSC_data_contact@usgs.gov
Keywords: Lake Ontario / New York / 2017-042-FA / UAS / aerial imagery / USGS
CopyrightNotice: Public Domain - please credit U.S. Geological Survey
Caption-Abstract:  Photographs of the Lake Ontario shoreline, Sodus Bay vicinity, New York, USA from survey 2017-042-FA.
    XMP tags: 
    Caption: Photographs of the Lake Ontario shoreline, Sodus Bay vicinity, New York, USA from survey 2017-042-FA.
    3. Finally, all the JPEG images were renamed with Namexif ( version 1.7: http://www.digicamsoft.com/softnamexif.html) to ensure unique filenames and compliance with USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program's best practices for image naming convention. Images were renamed with a survey ID prefix followed by a local USGS UID, which corresponds to a distinct UAS project; a camera ID that distinguishes among USGS cameras by make, model, and camera number; the image acquisition date and time in ISO8601 format(UTC; and a suffix with the original image name. For example, image name '2017042FA_U036RI01_20170714T162904Z_A2018661.JPG', 2017042FA is the internal survey ID, U036 is the internal UID, RI01 is the internal camera ID, 20170714 is the UTC date in format YYYYMMDD. A 'T' is used to separate UTC date from UTC time in format HHMMSS followed by a Z, and A2018661 is the original raw photo name appended to the end of the new filename. Person who carried out this activity:
    Elizabeth A. Pendleton
    U.S. Geological Survey
    Geologist
    U.S. Geological Survey
    Woods Hole, MA

    508-548-8700 x2259 (voice)
    508-457-2310 (FAX)
    ependleton@usgs.gov
    Date: 10-Aug-2020 (process 3 of 3)
    Added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword. Person who carried out this activity:
    U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: VeeAnn A. Cross
    Marine Geologist
    384 Woods Hole Road
    Woods Hole, MA

    508-548-8700 x2251 (voice)
    508-457-2310 (FAX)
    vatnipp@usgs.gov
  3. What similar or related data should the user be aware of?

How reliable are the data; what problems remain in the data set?

  1. How well have the observations been checked?
    The GPS used on the UAS has theoretical accuracies of 3 meters horizontally and 10 m vertically. Photogrammetric processing using ground control points produces estimates of camera location and attitude (roll, pitch, and yaw) with much higher accuracies. Tables containing position and attitude estimates derived from photogrammetric post-processing are available in this data release.
  2. How accurate are the geographic locations?
    Horizontal positions recorded in the UAS flight logs and later applied to the EXIF portion of the images were derived from a mRo GPS (u-Blox Neo-M8N / 3DR SOLO Upgrade), which receives signals from GPS and GLONASS satellites in WGS84 (G1150) EPSG::7660, but is otherwise uncorrected. Horizontal locations are considered accurate to approximately 3 meters, but may be off by as much as 10 meters due to UAS flight path and uncertainty associated with the geotagging process.
  3. How accurate are the heights or depths?
    Vertical positions recorded in the UAS flight logs and later applied to the EXIF portion of the images are ellipsoidal heights and were derived from a a mRo GPS (u-Blox Neo-M8N / 3DR SOLO Upgrade), which receives signals from GPS and GLONASS satellites, but is otherwise uncorrected. Vertical locations are less accurate than horizontal positions and may be off by more than 10 meters.
  4. Where are the gaps in the data? What is missing?
    Eighteen (f23-f40) UAS flights were conducted in Sodus Bay survey areas along the NY Lake Ontario shoreline. Flights 27, 33, and 38 were aborted for reasons including errors in the telemetry log, loss of contact with GPS base station, and poor photo quality. F27 is included in this data relealse, but only contains 72 photos. During successful flights, photographs were captured every 2 seconds. Gaps in sequential 2 second photo intervals exist because some photos were deleted, for example, because of overexposure, or multiple photos of the landing pad per flight as the UAS was taking off and landing. Additionally, during photo import into Photoscan, not all photos of takeoff and landing needed to be imported to the software, but were included here for thoroughness. Flights 23-40 were acquired in Sodus Bay vicinity and are associated with a WHSC AIM (Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center - Aerial Imaging and Mapping group). There are a total of 5,682 photos.
  5. How consistent are the relationships among the observations, including topology?
    Photographs were renamed to include survey ID, Camera ID, flight ID, date and time, and original filename to ensure no duplicated filenames. And EXIF header information was modified for all photos to include standard USGS tags. Some photographs may be auto-rotated during data management and transfer, however, this does not affect camera location, processing results, or final products in Photoscan software. Photos were collected with an ISO between 200 and 640, shutter speeds between 1/500 and 1/1000, and an aperature between 3.5 and 4.5. This information is available in the EXIF header for individual photos. All photos were flown with a downward looking camera angle, except for flight 26, which was flown oblique (approximately 30 degrees) to Lake Bluffs.

How can someone get a copy of the data set?

Are there legal restrictions on access or use of the data?
Access_Constraints None
Use_Constraints Public domain data from the U.S. Government are freely redistributable with proper metadata and source attribution. Please recognize the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) as the source of this information.
  1. Who distributes the data set? (Distributor 1 of 1)
    U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase
    Denver Federal Center, Building 810, Mail Stop 302
    Denver, CO

    1-888- 275-8747 (voice)
    sciencebase@usgs.gov
  2. What's the catalog number I need to order this data set? This data release includes raw data in the form of geotagged aerial images in JPEG format. The aerial images are distributed in 4 zip files, each containing folders of images, organized by flight number and limited to 10 GB in size. In total there are over 6032 images. The zip filenames are: 2017042FA_F23toF26_SodusBay.zip; 2017042FA_F27toF30_SodusBay.zip; 2017042FA_F31toF35_SodusBay.zip; 2017042FA_F36toF40_SodusBay.zip. Flights 23-27 were acquired on July 12 and are used in the Lake Bluffs project. Flights 28-35 were acquired on July 13. However, flights 27-30 are included in the Charles Point project, and flights 31-35 are in the Sodus North Project. Flights 36-40 were acquired on July 14 and are used in the Greig Street Project. Additionally, the FGDC CSDGM metadata (2017042FA_SodusBay_Photos.xml) and a browse graphic (2017042FA_SodusBay_Photos_browse.jpg) accompanies the images in each zip file.
  3. What legal disclaimers am I supposed to read?
    Neither the U.S. Government, the Department of the Interior, nor the USGS, 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 U.S. Geological Survey 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.
  4. How can I download or order the data?
  5. What hardware or software do I need in order to use the data set?
    These files require software capable of opening JPEG images and, if desired, capable or reading the associated EXIF information.

Who wrote the metadata?

Dates:
Last modified: 19-Mar-2024
Metadata author:
Sandra Brosnahan
U.S. Geological Survey
Physical Scientist
U.S. Geological Survey
Woods Hole, MA

508-548-8700 x2265 (voice)
508-457-2310 (FAX)
whsc_data_contact@usgs.gov
Contact_Instructions:
The metadata contact email address is a generic address in the event the person is no longer with USGS. (updated on 20240319)
Metadata standard:
Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC-STD-001-1998)
This page is <https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/catalog/whcmsc/SB_data_release/DR_P9XQYCD0/2017042FA_SodusBay_Photos.faq.html>
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