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Week 4: 3D Scans
09/16/2025
For this week’s lab, lab crews built on the skills they had already acquired in the creation of two dimensional scans and applied them to three dimensional scans. This week, two three dimensional scans were completed, and both were then later used to create computer processed scans. This lab’s flights were completed with the Skydio 2+ UAS, and they were conducted once again at the Purdue Student Garden. To start, the flight crew checked the study area for hazards, and found that there were fences, trees, and other unmanned aircraft in the area to watch out for. Proper communication with other crews and vigilance of hazards mitigated the risk. The drone was found to be fit for flight after the running of checklists, and the crew members were properly certificated and given PIC and VO roles. The weather was found to be manageable with sunny skies and light breezes. Figure 1 below shows the area of study on the day in question. Further below, in Figure 2, the LAANC authorization used for the flight can be seen and was needed because of the crew’s proximity to the class D airspace surrounding the Purdue University Airport. Return to home settings were also optimized.
Figure 1: Study Area
Figure 2: LAANC authorization
There were two flights to be conducted in this lab: one of a vehicle or a simulated vehicle crash, and one of a higher, towering object. This mimics two very real world uses for this technology: car crash investigations and infrastructure monitoring. The first of these two flights was conducted around a Jeep SUV, and a three dimensional scan was produced. This was accomplished first by understanding the proper settings, which were that the scan height and floor encompassed the vehicle with an overlap and sidelap of 80%. Once this was confirmed, the flight was conducted with great success. In Figure 3 below, these settings can be seen, and in Figure 4 below that, an example image from the scan can be seen.
Figure 3: Jeep scan settings
Figure 4: Jeep scan example image
Once this was completed, the tower flight was comducted around a light post. For this to work, the tower scan tool was utilized, and this allowed for tall and skinny objects to have optimized flight paths. Very similar settings were utilized for this flight to happen, and the scan height ceiling and floor were confirmed to be such that the entire tower could be included in the scan. A picture of the settings as they appears on the controller can be seen below in Figure 5. Further on down, a picture of an example image from the flight of the lightpost can be seen in Figure 6. During both flights, the flight path was generated before the scan, and this flight path was accepted by the crew before beginning the flight. The operator’s understanding of the equipment was aided by in class training on this system in an AT309 lecture.
Figure 5: Tower scan settings
Figure 6: Tower scan example image
After both flights were completed, the applicable flight data was secured and stored for a later date in which to produce proper three dimensional scans in lab. This data was very important to collect because of how specific the parameters and image quality had to be to make a good scan. There were many more images required in this lab than others because of how complicated three dimensional objects can be in the realm of scanning, but that is what gives the crew so much detail after processing. A table of applicable flight data can be seen below in Figure 7. A full report from this assignment can be given upon request.
Figure 7: Flight data table
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