Drone footage tips?

[Scott Dombrowski]

I have an animation project coming up that showcases a new bike trail over a river. The backplate will be footage from a drone flown by a company we're hiring. I've done a few small scale tracking projects for practice and have done one project that tracked "footage" from a Google Earth Pro animation. The process was a little clunky, but workable, so I feel like I have at least a base of knowledge to work on.

 

That said, this will be my first attempt at tracking aerial footage. I'm a little concerned about being able to pick up reliable tracking points from the footage because the location for the bridge is relatively undeveloped. There's a bike trail that leads up to the river (the bridge is the next phase of the trail), and there's a large set of power lines that traverse the river a couple hundred feet downstream, but otherwise no other man made structures will be visible in the shots. I'm considering setting up a few poles with tennis balls on top in spots that will be covered by the 3D model to help with the tracking.

 

Any other tips or gotchas to watch out for?

[James Vella]

Yes, ask them to use a 3D Camera Drone. It will plot all the points for you and create a mesh aswell, pretty much does 90% of the work for an aerial.

[Scott Dombrowski]

Thanks for the advice, but I don't think the operator has lidar capabilities. He's using a DJI Inspire with the 15mm (30mm equivalent) lens. If we have enough time on-site, I may ask him to make a few passes for photogammetry purposes. Our survey group has already been on-site so I'll have accurate cadd data of the existing conditions. I think as long as I can get several markers in each shot for tracking purposes, the shoot should go ok. I've heard about rolling shutter issues affecting getting a good 3D track, but the shots will be fairly slow so I hope that won't be a factor. I also plan on shooting a chrome ball to capture an HDR environment for lighting.

 

The shoot is scheduled for Thursday morning, so if anyone else has additional advice before then, I'm all ears!