Bird's Eye View

This is my colleague and friend, Joel. He's a fellow GIS mapping nerd like me. Maybe just a tad nerdier, actually. Sorry, Joel. This is his homemade quadcopter. It is outfitted with a GPS and digital camera and Joel can control the position of the quadcopter very precisely from his remote or laptop. He can see the location of the quadcopter in real time over high resolution aerial imagery (think Google Maps) and using the on-board digital camera, he can capture photographs and various angles and stitch them together to create ultra high resolution (think two inches!) aerial imagery that can be used in GIS mapping programs.

 Okay...enough nerdy stuff. Take a look at these cool pictures he took with the quadcopter in our back yard. It kind of makes our house look ginormous, especially compared to our neighbors, so...that's a little embarrassing. I think it's the hill though. Our house is big..but not THAT big!

Cool, right? Doesn't it make you wish you could be a bird, just for one day?