Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Currently at work we are engaged on a project that, as one of its outcomes, will create a virtual reality model of the Neanderthal Cave at Scladina in Belgium. This cave is archaeologically unique in that it was never occupied by us homo sapiens! So any hominid remains or evidence of occupation is uncorrupted by later human habitation. Its estimated that Neanderthals occupied the cave right up to about 40,000BC and maybe for hundreds of thousands of years before that. In the 1990's the archaeologists there discovered the jaw bone of an 8 year-old Neanderthal girl. Subsequently more of her remains have been uncovered. You can find out more about the cave here. The cave isn't really open to the public - it is still an active archaeological excavation site and there are serious health and safety issues in making it accessible. This is why, given the enormous cultural, scientific and historic significance, the European Commission are paying a lot of money for this project with teams from 5 European countries working together to digitise the interior of the cave in 3D so that a virtual reality model can be built and people can "experience and explore" the cave at least in a computer. Our job is to capture the cave in 3D using UAVs! The cave is large (by cave standards!) but not that large that flying in there is easy. So we constructed a special MR - just 250mm, with prop guards in case we touch the walls and well powered so it could lift a GoPro Hero 4 camera. Here is a photo of the team in the cave in December preparing for a flight, You can just see the quad in front of my colleague Fred in the blue shirt. The flying was done in just two days - the whole cave. And believe me the cave is very extensive and meanders a long way. During those two days we made over 50 flights, gathering videos from all angles, high and low within the cave - the aim was to have multiple views of every part of the cave - necessary for what we were to do when we analysed the videos. The flying was sometimes pretty stressful - especially when Belgian Television news turned up to make a piece on what we were doing! Two of my lads, Francis and Fred (who happens to be originally from France, which was handy language wise) were stars of Belgian TV for a few minutes! You can catch the news item here, be warned it is in French! Back at base we are analysing the videos. What we are doing is a computer technique known as "shape from motion". You will be familiar with stereo vision - we have two eyes, each receives a slightly different view of the world, and our brain put those two images together with the result that we see in 3 dimensions. Well now imagine a moving drone capturing video. Each frame of the video is taken from a slightly different position. We could take two consecutive frames and do the stereo vision thing to get 3D data. But we don't have just two images - we have 25 every second from the video! It is an immense computing task - it takes a fairly powerful computer 5 days to number crunch one 10 min video to produce 3D data! But crunch it it does, with result we have a full 3D computer model of the area the quad flew around. We have just got our first video through the processing - the computer is still hot! It is of a small sub-cave off the main one known as the St Paul's Gallery - because it was discovered on feast of St Paul! Here then is a reconstructed simulated fly-through of the 3D digital model. Remember this isn't "on-board video" from a UAV - its the result of processing that video to make a solid model in the computer and then "flying" through that model in simulation - we can't fly as smooth as that! YouTube has downgraded the resolution quite a bit and so the quality has suffered rather - the original is much better - but you get the idea. So there we are - just another 49 videos to process and we have the whole cave! Then its over to the VR team for them to build the virtual world and the scenarios within it. Now, tell me you could do that with fixed wing! BEB PS Who still prefers flying fixed wing, but can't do it in a cave! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Whybrow Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 That's very impressive imaging, nice to see the MRs being put to good use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kc Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 The EC are paying you to fly model planes! We are paying you to fly! The sooner we leave the EC the better! Jealous........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john stones 1 - Moderator Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 What a project to be involved with, you lucky man John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trebor Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 What frame are you using for the multi rotor ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 Its just carbon fibre rod Trebor, and then bolted together on a central plate we made with a 3D printer.. The MR is an in-house design we lashed together ourselves. Yes kc - they actually pay me to fly! I still can't quite believe it either! And it gets better, the other site we will do as proof of the technology is the Royal Tombs of Phillip II (father of Alexander the Great) in Northern Greece. We are due to do that in May later this year. Getting clearance to over fly that has been very difficult - its a World Heritage Site - but we've got it. Yes, its tough, but someone has to do it. BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mowerman Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Multi rotors are very useful tools for many jobs an can be used in situations where access is difficult. I remember some time back reading Peter Lowe's column where he used one to check out his house roof tiling, (oops that is not actually legal) to save having to climb a ladder. Sadly they are too often misused which creates a negative public image. This applies to much modern technology and the negative side is always stresses by the tabloid press. Edited By Mowerman on 15/01/2016 12:22:31 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McG 6969 Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Great job, BEB... So, you came to Andenne, Belgium without letting me know... ppfff... I guess this is part of the DigiArt project, as is the Aigai 3D-immersive planning? If needed, I'm totally free in May & as an former photographer, happen to have a bit of experience with SD cards... & even able to order some beers in Greek... Kalimera Chris BRU - BE / CTR Dio Birra Control Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 Yes indeed Chris it is the DigiArt project. I am the project co-ordinator and leader for Digiart. You may not have to go as far as Greece - its likely we will back at Scladina in March or so to do some LIDAR scans - these will be ground based as the MR we have that will lift the LIDAR pod weighs over 10Kg and so is far too big to fly inside the cave. Maybe we can share a few of the famous Belgian Beers! Mowerman: don't worry! Pete was safe. As long as he didn't pay himself he was not breaking the law! BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Fascinating. That cave excavation must be an amazingly exciting dig. I just wondered why the laser scanning method has not been used. I know it doesn't record colours etc, perhaps that is the reason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McG 6969 Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 That should be great, BEB. If & when, you're back to Scladina, you just have to let me know. And, in relation with some famous Belgian brewery juice, of course you're in as well, and... it's not that 'heavy' to lift. A votre santé Chris BRU - BE / CTR Brewery Juice Control Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 Posted by Peter Miller on 15/01/2016 18:21:03: I just wondered why the laser scanning method has not been used. I know it doesn't record colours etc, perhaps that is the reason The LIDAR I refer to above Peter is indeed a laser scanning technique. And you're right its main limitation is that it does not capture the colour texture - but it is more accurate. Our ultimate plan is to fuse the "shape from motion" and the LIDAR data into one set - and so try to get the best of both worlds as it were. But it must be said that while we obviously want the 3D data to be as accurate as possible, for the VR application photo-realism at slightly lower accuracy is preferable to superb accuracy - but just point-cloud and no image. BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Miller Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Yes, I can see that. It looks a great archaeological tool, especially fot the cave system and also would work well in barrows. Well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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