All: Below is a new and very short video about an idea we have had to measure change using sets of corrected (rectified, if you will) pictures over time from the same place. We think it has lots of applications to the type of work that ecologists, foresters, land managers, and environmental citizen groups do and provides an easy (and actually information dense) way of tracking long-term changes using volunteers using the smart phone that many carry in their pocket, we talk about its use in trails in the video, but the concept is broad and is meant to be applicable to any location you would like to create uniform documentation of change over long or short periods of time without having to install a permanent camera.
Here is the pitch video (under 3 minutes) http://youtu.be/A1ULAsEQAWs Here is the technical video that shows how to rectify the pictures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2pEKjw3Idk Below is some additional information on the idea. ----- On the ground impacts of Global Climate change, sea level rise, changes to our forests and landscapes, development, all can be measured with precise scientific instruments. But the money and time to do so is often just not there and thus major changes around us are happening but remain undocumented. However, a partial solution is at hand by simply taking pictures over time from the same location. Combine those pictures into a sequence and you directly and permanently document and demonstrate change, and these changes can then be quantified. This video is a short pitch video about a concept to crowdsource changes in the environments where we live, work, play, or care about .... be they parks, our backyards, our rivers, or our city scape, using nothing more than camera phones. The new thing here is that multiple people with multiple cameras can take pictures....the pictures are then processed using existing software so that no matter what camera type or format the pictures were originally they are transformed into uniform snapshots of the same scene, they have the same dimensions with all the objects in the pictures the same size and shape....this allows all the different pictures to be put into time lapse sequences that can be made into a video, a slideshow, or used to measure change directly….over days, years, or decades. People can do this right now using existing materials at single sites or they can organize networks of camera stations at scales of parks, cities, watersheds, counties, states, countries, or the world. This is a presentation of an idea. Anyone can modify this in any way they like and implement it at any scale. No copyrights. No permissions needed. Just Do It. For more technical details on doing the picture rectification see our video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2pEKjw3Idk Possible places/groups to implement: Watershed societies, Riverkeepers, Stream crossings, trail clubs, stream monitoring groups; coastal beaches, dunes, marshes; lichen plots, restorations sites, forestry sites, parks, refuges, new developments, your backyard, construction of a building, the greenup in spring and the leaf drop in the fall of forests and so forth sam Sam Droege [email protected] w 301-497-5840 h 301-390-7759 fax 301-497-5624 USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center BARC-EAST, BLDG 308, RM 124 10300 Balt. Ave., Beltsville, MD 20705 Http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov The Inward Morning Packed in my mind lie all the clothes Which outward nature wears, And in its fashion's hourly change It all things else repairs -Henry David Thoreau *Bees are Not Optional* *مکھیوں اختیاری نہیں ہیں *
