Remote Geosystems UAV software free for hurricane work

To assist with Hurricane Harvey and Irma emergency response and damage assessments efforts, Remote GeoSystems is donating LineVision software licenses to official agency, volunteer and non-profit drone operators.

In addition to supporting a Texas A&M team responding to Harvey, LineVision is being pre-deployed to volunteers organized by Florida State University’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Program to help with the Hurricane Irma search and rescue and damage assessment.

Any other volunteer teams, first responders and non-profit organizations providing essential response and recovery services are encouraged to complete the contact form to request free copies of LineVision software for disaster relief efforts.

LineVision lets emergency response teams easily map drone video of Hurricane Harvey damage assessments. (Image: Remote Geosystems)

The LineVision solution is a commercial software suite for UAV, airborne and terrestrial mobile inspection and survey projects requiring geo-referenced video playback, analysis, collaboration and reporting using standard Esri maps and data, Esri ArcMap and Google Earth GIS applications.

Using the software, anyone with a GPS-enabled video camera, drone or geospatial DVR that can geotag video in the proper format can immediately load their videos and photos to Esri ArcGIS and Google Earth along with compatible geospatial data.

As the video plays, a position marker moves along an aerial or terrestrial GPS track positioned on a map, continuously indicating where the current frames were recorded. Users may also geospatially “navigate” a video recording by simply clicking a single point along an aerial or terrestrial GPS track.

The video then automatically advances to that point in the recording so that users can visually interpret what was recorded at that specific place and time. If something of interest is detected in the video, users may also “snap” an image from the video, which is geotagged and saved for future analysis.

In addition to video, users can import photos and documents from disaster survey and assessment projects. All these imported data types can be saved in a Remote GeoSystems “geoProject” file for data portability, reporting and future analysis in other versions of LineVision desktop, cloud and server applications.

Help with Harvey

Remote GeoSystems was contacted by the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), who was deployed with the Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management.

All parties involved moved quickly, and within a few hours after being contacted, drone video data collection teams were using various versions of the company’s donated LineVision video and photo mapping software to map and view interactive UAV flight tracks with corresponding videos in Esri ArcGIS and Google Earth GIS software.

The software is being used to help visualize, distribute and share the data available from a record 119 UAS flights that CRASAR conducted over 11 days, including 61 flights on a single day.

“We first learned about Remote GeoSystems’ LineVision software for mapping geotagged video from drones about a year ago, and at that time even did a proof of concept demo for the USCG and first responders,” said Justin Adams, Air Operations Branch Director for Fort Bend County Manned/Unmanned Ops and CRASAR director of operations for Harvey.  “Now with the Texas Gulf Coast facing a long and difficult assessment and recovery process and Hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida, it became clear now was the time to deploy this valuable UAV solution to operators and volunteers working the affected areas.

“I have been involved in manned and unmanned aviation for the better part of two decades and Remote Geo offers not only the simplest, but most complete solution for rapid geospatial aerial and ground-based disaster assessment and reporting in the industry.”

Key Features of LineVision

• Play videos from single and multi-camera data collection platforms
• “Click-on-Map” video navigation
• Set a custom geo-fence around the moving position marker
• Load Esri ArcGIS or Google Earth-compatible geospatial data files
• Save video and photo work as geoProjects for simple project reporting, archive and search