Flight Planning

1
Flight Planning

• Planning for aerial photography is critical to
  the success of projects.
• Many people use photographs obtained for some
  other purpose, simply to avoid costs of planning
  and acquisition.

2
Flight Planning

• Federal agencies provide general use
  photographs that need to be evaluated with
  project objectives in mind.
• Objectives of the project determine procedures.
• Must know primary use of the photographs.

3
Flight Planning

• Most critical factor in aerial photography is the
  weather.
• Many areas of the world have but few cloud free
  days.
• Most photography flown between 10am and 2pm local
  solar time.
• Avoids long shadows.
• Prime time for puffy white clouds.

4
Flight Planning

• Settles critical issues
• Where is project area?
• How many photos needed to cover the area at
  desired scale and resolution.
• When is the target in desirable condition?
• Is stereo viewing necessary?
• Are quantitative reflectance standards necessary?

5
Flight Line Spacing
6
Photograph Spacing
7
Geometric Factors

• Focal length of the camera lens
• Camera/film format size
• Photo scale
• Size of area to be photographed
• Average elevation of the ground
• Overlap required?
• Sidelap required?
• Ground speed of the aircraft

8
Geometric Factors

• Flying height above datum
• H(PSRcfl)havg
• Location, direction, and number of flight lines
• Ground coverage, CPSR(size of photo)
• Ground separation of photo centers if 40 advance
  needed is C0.4

9
Geometric Factors

• Time interval between exposures
• 2300m/photo x 3600sec/hr 51sec
• 160km/hr 1000m/km
• Number of exposures per line
• Total number of exposures

10
Other Specifications

• Mission timing-critical for most photography.
• Crop calendar (plant phenology).
• Sun angle effects.

11
Other Specifications

• Ground control requirements.
• Precise elevations for topography maps.
• Camera calibration requirements.
• Cfl calibrated focal length, used for
  topography projects.

12
Looking in Stereo
13
Looking in Stereo
14
Looking in Stereo