THE DRONE - A METHODOLOGICAL TOOL, FOR GENERATING BASE LAYERS IN GIS

Abstract

One of the latest paradigms of today's interdisciplinary studies in geosciences, consists of the implementation of the newest, most accurate, and relevant datasets available, in order to emphasize the appearance, causality or effects of different phenomena, which interfere with humans. Therefore, there is a permanent strive for data, relevant in geographical analysis, which is highly accurate, and also cost-effective. Due to the recent developments in UAV technology, and lowering of production costs, drones have been integrated into methodological workflows all around the world, in numerous fields, ranging from habitat delineation, to geomorphologic mapping. Most such studies use either a digital surface model (DSM) or ortophoto imagery generated from drone aerial images. Also, Structure From Motion algorithms (SFM) have been highly developed recently, into detecting ever more complicated shapes and objects. This means that the drone has turned into an indispensable tool for generating base layers used in any GIS-based study, because it generates fast, high accuracy, repeatable, on demand data sets. This paper intends to reveal a methodological approach towards generating the two, most important raster layers for the majority of spatial analyses: the digital surface model/digital elevation model, and the ortophoto, respectively.