GrassrootsMapping
Illustrated Guide

Pat Coyle and Jeffrey Warren are developing an illustrated (comic-strip style) step-by-step guide to balloon mapping.

Working pages:

• See the Flickr gallery of illustrations so far
• See Illustrated Guide Outline for in-progress outlining efforts

Journal and notes

Pat Coyle has been compiling notes on his own experiments and discussions with Jeffrey Warren, and his extremely detailed journal is a great starting point for the illustrated guide:

• Grassroots Mapping Belize Feb21 - First tests with Soda Bottle Rig and GPS on a broom handle. Identified problems (awkwardness) with rig and shutoff problem with the CHDK script.
• Grassroots Mapping Belize Feb22? - Lots of notes on rig details, kite line recommendations, knots, etc.
• Grassroots Mapping Belize Feb25 - Soda Bottle Rig improvements, prototypes

Notes on storyboard

These are outline notes for Coyle and Jeffrey Warren illustrated (comic-strip style) step-by-step guide to balloon mapping.

Simple Aerial Photography Mapping with Balloons or Kites

Why bother?

Aerial photomaps can be very useful. Show example applications and personal stories. They include:

• Community Planning
• Site Planning
• Land boundary adjudication
• Agricultural planning
• Ecological evaluations such as counting species, map mapping vegetation and habitat, etc
• Document changes such as cutting of rain forest clearing of land, etc.

How? In summary, what’s needed?

• Equipment: field and in-office for processing
• Software
• Supplies
• Materials

Step-by-step guide

Decide what you want to do, produce and deliver. Thinking this through will help to define the requirements.

For example, here is Coyle’s preliminary set of requirements:

• Take detailed aerial photos of the Belize Open Source Sustainable Development 40 -acre property with enough details that individual trees are clear.
• Cover the site with overlapping images and use software to stitch them together into a single photomap and also georegister the photomap to tie it into Google Earth imagery of the property.
• Retag the individual photos with GPS data so they can be georeferenced and viewed on maps like Google Maps, Google Earth, or others.
• Develop methods to use the photomaps for work planning, tracking progress and communicating results to encourage participation in the initiative. Document the approach and techniques.
• Apply the method to other community mapping initiatives and make it available for other users like EWB.

What is needed to meet the requirements?

• Digital camera with ability to take photos automatically at say 10-second intervals (most Canon cameras will do, see Balloon Aerial Photography)
• GPS unit with tracking and logging capability (optional, some users may not have this requirement)
• A package to house the camera and GPS unit
• A suspension system to connect the package to the balloon or kite and keep it pointed down, oriented to minimize rotation or spin (more complicated pan/tilt capabilities with real-time video feed back systems are not in the scope of this how-to comic)
• Balloon(s) or kite with enough lift capability to carry the camera, GPS unit, housing and sufficient tether line to reach height of interest for the photographs. A safe area to test the system and process.
• A safe area and approach to use the process in the field. (Show a series of panels with the steps)
• A method to process the data and present the results.
• A method to cover the area of interest at varying altitudes. May involve multiple tether lines and people on the ground carrying out a predefined set of movements.
• Methods to cover the area over timeframes of interest over the duration of construction or other activities. This will require methods to reliable reposition the platform repeatedly over hours, days, weeks or months.
• An approach to discuss and use the results.
• Discussion of constraints and choices such as balloon or kite, helium, hot air, or hydrogen
• Safety planning
• Troubleeshooting tips
• References and links to on-line community of users