Hunter Aerial Photography Services recently completed an aerial mapping operation for a number of almond farms in North Western Victoria in the Sunraysia District. The purpose of the project was to conduct an individual count of almond trees across separate farms using the orthorectified mosaic produced from the flight.
The mapping operation occurred over a 3-day period and took just over 10 hours mapping time to cover 38,000 hectares at a ground sample distance of 10cm.
Using our innovative dual portable camera pods mounted to a Cessna 172 aircraft, we captured not only vertical RGB photographs but also near infra red imagery from the second camera, which provided valuable data on vegetation density and health.
For a range of industries and commercial sectors including agricultural, mining, road and rail engineering, coastal and port infrastructure and local government enterprises, the aerial mapping system we have developed delivers a safe, quality and cost-effective solution for medium to large scale mapping projects.
Key details for the almond plantation operation were
- Mapped area – 38,000 hectares
- Flight Height – 3,000 feet above ground level
- Mapping time – 10.5 hours
- Ground Sample Distance – 10 cm
- Images – 4,790
- Camera – 50 MP Full Frame Sensor
Key outputs have included an orthorectified mosaic, digital surface model, point cloud data and Normalised Differential Vegetation Index Maps (NDVI).
The following video is an animation of one of the 4 areas mapped which was just over 53 square kilometres.
Orthorectified Mosaic – Mildura Area 4
NDVI Map – Mildura Area 4
