An Interesting Drone Idea

[Hurricane]

Out in Spain a couple of weeks ago, a friend who is a "proper" drone pilot (unlike me) came up with a suggestion.
His thought is to create lots of separate short drone video clips and create a database of "Port Entries".
These clips could be distributed over the internet so that mariners could experience a foreign harbour before entering it.
During our conversation, we suggested that it need not be limited to harbours - anchorages and other features could also be included in the database of video clips.
My friend was thinking that there might be opportunity of developing the concept commercially and charging for the service.

Personally, I think that there is more mileage in setting it up as "Open Source" and let others contribute to the video database.
My thoughts were to also write a module for OpenCPN which would display small Video Icons on charts where these video clips were available.
In a similar way that Navionics display their camera icons on their Gold Charts.
Clicking on a Video Icon within OpenCPN would then load and display the clip.
Distributing an addon for OpenCPN would instantly market the idea to thousands of Open Source Users throughout the world.

What do people think about his idea and should it be developed?

 

[rogerthebodger]

Interesting Idea. Revenue could be from advertising instead of subscription.

There may also be security issues with some port authorities. I know that in my part of the world it may take years to get approval.

In my part of the world a drone pilot need an flight licence to operate a drone and cannon be flown over built up areas.

 

[sarabande]

humm, nice idea, but regulatory and compliance issues to be resolved. I cannot see for instance the Plymouth Harbour Master allowing overflights anywhere near the Navy installations, and some of the private housing near elite harbours might kick up a fuss also.

A bird's eye view of the approaches and then the final run into to a mooring or marina would be very useful, but I think you would have to standardise on height and zoom levels, to ensure that there is a consistent visual information input. Some people have difficulty with interpreting eidetic maps without having to adjust for different heights and zoom factors from a video.


Open Access is the way to go. One company trying to overfly then edit the thousands of ports and harbours in order to get critical mass of data to make DVD/web access viable - masses and masses of work. Thousands of individuals doing the same - coordination of inputs, and quality control, will be difficult but achievable by benevolent cooperation.

 

[Seastoke]

Great idea ,maybe patent it somehow and sell to google

 

[Anders_P42]

I think google earth covers this idea off? I can identify my boat on it's berth fully zoomed in. Granted it requires an Internet connection.

 

[SandgroperWA]

As would downloading videos. Well spoken. Cheers from down under

 

[CharlieAlpha]

I think google earth covers this idea off? I can identify my boat on it's berth fully zoomed in. Granted it requires an Internet connection.

Certainly Google give you the overall picture, and you could do it all with charts and good pilot notes, but getting the 'picture' I always find very useful because as with almost all approaches sticking to the blue bits or even the main channel (designed for larger vessels) is not always the answer and could get you into trouble.

 

[MapisM]

Hurricane, I missed this thread so far for some reason, but I think it's a good idea.
TBH, I wouldn't hold my breath on the chances to make any meaningful money out of it, but I for one would definitely check out that type of videos whenever available, before approaching a new harbour.
Just one additional thought: does the drone allow to record on the video its own position and heading (that it surely must know, with its internal gps system) in real time?
If yes, it would be nice to fly the drone along the harbour entrance, just a few meters above the water, getting not only a simulation of the landscape you would have from a pilothouse, but also an accurate approach route. :encouragement:

 

[mlines]

Hmm, I wonder if a cheap SDR radio receiver could do it?

 

[Hurricane]

I think that some of you have missed the point.
Yes - there is Google Earth/Google Maps and I use it a lot.
However, the aerial shots on GE are too high to appreciate the finer points of a harbour entry or even an anchorage.
I know that there are some marine photos from GE (using Streetview concept) but I've not seen many that would be specifically interesting to leisure mariners.
And you could use Google's contribution system but I feel that this specific data might get lost amongst all the other data within Google Maps

MapisM has made the point.

it would be nice to fly the drone along the harbour entrance, just a few meters above the water, getting not only a simulation of the landscape you would have from a pilothouse, but also an accurate approach route

@MapisM
Yes, I'm sure it would be possible to have some of the avionics data on the video clip but if this were to be a mass project where lots of people and drone owners contribute, it might be difficult to include this kind of data on all clips.

For example, the concept could be extended to include ANY video clip (even those taken from a smart phone whilst entering a harbour).
And for that matter even still photographs.
Basically, images that you wouldn't find on GE.

I think that the idea does have some mileage.
A website could also be put together using the Google Maps API which would include links to the videos taken by the contributors.
A few years ago, I wrote a web application that does just that - the web app is a database of Points of Interest for the Sant Carles Marina community.
It is part of the Sant Carles SCMCHAT forum but can be accessed (in Read Only Mode) by non members.
Here's a link to it:-
http://www.scmchat.com/extraweb/map/scmmap.php
You can click on a POI in the left column to show the details of that particular POI - details include its location, contributors notes/comments and a photo of the POI
SCMCHAT members can add and modify POIs.

A similar website/webpage could be easily built to show the contributer's video images of harbours and anchorages round the world.
As I say, these video images could be more appropriate to us leisure boaters.
My additional idea was to also incorporate the images into OpenCPN and allow the images/videos to be downloaded so that they could be used at sea.
Note that OpenCPN is now available for the Android platform as well as Windows, Mac and all flavors of Linus.
I've even seen builds for the Raspberry Pi - very interesting now that the latest Raspberry Pi runs at 1.2Ghz - faster than most laptops - blisteringly quick for media centers.

 

[CharlieAlpha]

The likes of Premier and MDL have started making these video's so the idea of collecting them together makes sense to me.