Low Altitude Unmanned Aerial Photography To Assist in Rock Art Studies
Author(s): Evelyn Billo; Robert Mark
Year: 2015
Summary
A radio-controlled DJI Phantom quadcopter with GoPro or built-in camera can help document archaeological features best seen from the air, such as geoglyphs, rock alignments, and some rock art panels. The camera can be set for interval photography, or monitored and triggered in real-time. The fisheye image distortion can be reasonably corrected with software such as Photoshop or DxO. This portable and relatively inexpensive method of flying a pattern and hovering directly above a site (now limited by the FAA to less than 122 m above ground level) has potential for detailed mapping and understanding features difficult to photograph or map from the ground. The archaeological community is awaiting forthcoming regulations.
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Cite this Record
Low Altitude Unmanned Aerial Photography To Assist in Rock Art Studies. Robert Mark, Evelyn Billo. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 395028)
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Keywords
General
quadcopter
•
Unmanned Aerial Systems
Geographic Keywords
North America - Southwest
Spatial Coverage
min long: -115.532; min lat: 30.676 ; max long: -102.349; max lat: 42.033 ;