Drone Overhead Capture
Definition
Aerial photography or videography from an unmanned aerial vehicle, used for outdoor scenes that exceed ground-level photographic coverage.
- Platform
- Unmanned aerial vehicle
- Captures
- Aerial photography and videography
- Typical use
- Large outdoor scenes
- Advantage
- Coverage beyond ground-level photography
Common questions
What legal permissions typically constrain drone use at a crime scene?+
Operators generally need aviation authority registration or licensing for the drone and pilot, and may face airspace restrictions near airports or sensitive sites. Some jurisdictions also require specific authorisation for police use of aerial surveillance, separate from ordinary civilian drone rules.
How does drone imagery get tied into 3D scene reconstruction?+
Overlapping aerial photographs are processed through photogrammetry software to generate an orthomosaic or 3D point cloud of the scene, which can be scaled using ground control points or laser scan data and merged with ground-level captures to give a single measurable model of the entire scene.
Related terms
- 3D Laser Scanner
- An instrument that emits a laser sweep across the scene and records millions of distance measurements per second, producing a point-cloud model...
- BNSS Section 105 Videography
- The mandatory continuous video recording of search and seizure under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023.
- Evidence-Grade Digital Imaging
- Capture and storage of digital images in a manner that preserves chain-of-custody integrity, typically through hash-based fingerprinting of the original RAW or...
- Point Cloud
- The raw data product of a LiDAR survey: a set of 3D coordinates (X, Y, Z) for each laser return, classified by...