Well you can't say I don't give you unusual vehicles on Biglorryblog. This one is either the samples van for a travelling Viagra salesman, a van that's been dropped on a bollard OR it's the world's first panoramic 60 megapixel street-level imaging vehicle from Yotta. Now click through here to find out which it is...
Sadly, or fortunately depending on your point of view its the latter. Yotta, at www.yotta.tv is the 3D mapping division of OMG plc (Oxford Metrics Group), and has introduced this innovative vehicle-based imaging service tol provide unique high-resolution panoramic street-level views of property and highway features. To do it it has a 60 megapixel panoramic camera developed by Yotta and uses Applanix satellite positioning technology to log the exact location of each image. The vehicle will be used to enhance street-level mapping with accurate 3D images of buildings and other highway features, such as signs, trees, barriers and fences.
Called Y360, the vehicle's high-resolution digital camera captures images every 2 metres, with the precise position (to less than 1 metre) of each image calculated by combining GPS, Inertial and Optical tracking systems with advanced algorithms. These images are processed by Yotta's proprietary software that analyses them pixel-by-pixel to give the precise position and detailed information for each feature captured by the camera during the journey.
Y360 represents the next generation in surveying and mapping and is a huge step forward with technology developed in the UK. The accuracy and detail of the street-level images together with the location information collected can be matched with aerial photographs and maps. Combining all of this data can be used to provide an accurate view of a building, its boundaries, its precise location and verified address. The vehicle will be used for a wide range of applications including 'highway asset collection' (presumably to see if any students have nicked the signs) for Local Authorities, Highways Agencies and their contractors, property surveys for Council Tax valuations, and 3D mapping in general for such organisations as utility companies and mobile phone network providers. And in the meantime thanks to a Biglorryblog reader I now know how that one man satellite-located pot hole filler works...check out the post and the comment -- it's actually rather neat.
Comments (1)
Image the memory card this camera would need, must be the size of a Chep pallet at least. The Google street view photos they did in Australia were done with a fleet of Holden Astra cars with a similiar setup on the roof.
Posted by Peter Lynch | August 22, 2008 12:04 PM
Posted on August 22, 2008 12:04