WEEK 1 (June 4 – 8th)
My first week of the Digital Technology Summer Fellowship passed by very quickly! I spend the first few days of the internship continuing to study for the FAA Remote Pilot Aviation test so that I can be licensed and certified to commercially operate a drone for the purposes of my project as well as to represent Gettysburg College to the public. I am finding the Part 107 Rupprecht Law Study Guide and part 107 FAA certification videos to be extremely helpful in testing my knowledge and learning new material! I am reviewing aeronautical maps, aviation symbols, weather patterns, and legal conditions regarding where a drone is allowed to operate and during what circumstances. This past week I have also contacted professors from my past classes to ask for their advice of how I should, for example, create my own layers in ArcGIS using field data I collected myself. I plan on not only using the advice given by these professors but to also teach myself how to carry about these operations by searching for tutorial videos and articles online.
On the very first day, I spent a significant amount of time planning milestones, budgets, and goals. I also came up with an official list of the tools and materials I will need to conduct my project such as a drone, total station, Carvey Inventables (3D printer), and Pix4D program (photogrammetry software). I have arranged with Professor Principato from the environmental science department to meet next week when she will briefly show me how to set up the total station to measure land elevation patterns. However, the set-up and operations of the total machine will mainly be self-taught much like everything else in this internship because I will need to fill in the gaps of knowledge and learn to use the functions of the machine to the advantage of my project goals.
I have also familiarized myself with how to operate a Mavic drone by searching for tutorials and articles online as well as reading the manual. Although I am not yet able to operate the drone, I find it useful to become comfortable with the controls and operations. I have also completed tutorials for Pix4D in order to have a better understanding of how to use the program for my project. So far I have learned about the georeferencing, coordinate system, and spatial data features of Pix4D. I am currently considering using only Pix4D to create the model of the campus instead of ArcGIS as well because I believe the data may be redundant if I were to use both programs. However, my project is still going through adaptations and the final product may be different from what I currently have in mind.
Tomorrow I plan on completing more Pix4D tutorials as well as discovering how I can import my own data and images taken by a drone to the program. I am very excited to see what happens!
Pix4DMapper Pro’s rayCloud video animation trajectory
