GeoDyn offers a wide range of geospatial data services focused on the scanning and processing of aerial films. We cover the complete workflow from identifying the available films, through scanning, to accurate georeferencing and extracting information to make informed decisions. Our business model is to lease the required hardware and software for the duration of the project, thus ensuring organizations are not left with hardware they do not require. To assure high quality, we put extensive effort to automate all processes. This is based on experience from a large number of pervious projects GeoDyn have undertaken. Where possible, we work with organizations to train their own staff to perform the required tasks, making full use of the knowledge available within each organization and also reduce costs.
These Services include :
Cataloging Archives to know what you have
Film Scanning to accurately digitize the films
Image Processing and Enhancement to optimize imagery interoperability
Georeferencing to know approximate location and scale
Aerial Triangulation to determine accurate orientation
Orthorectification to create accurate image maps
Dissemination and Visualisation to share your imagery internally or with the public
Feature Extraction to create datasets for analysis
Prior to any scanning, a catalogue of available films is required so as to better manage the project. PromptFilmID helps you understand the contents of your aerial film archive. Using the Android app and QR code stickers, you can create a unique identifier and extract information for each film establishing the foundation of a comprehensive film database. You have the option to import an existing database or utilize GeoDyn's simple form entry system. The database also enables more accurate price estimation for scanning and conversion services.
Interested? Contact us for free access to PromptFilmID and QR codes. Then take the first step in transforming your archive into a valuable asset.
GeoDyn specializes in aerial film scanning with advanced PromptScan technology. Our photogrammetric scanners ensure precise capture of film details, achieving resolutions as high as 12.5um with a remarkable geometric accuracy of up to 2 μm. Unlike traditional methods that are costly and time-consuming, PromptScan can rapidly scan frames at a maximum capacity of 90,000 frames per month and up to a million frames within a year. It is designed to handle various film types, densities and sizes.
GeoDyn offers these scanners on lease. We provide options for on-site or off-site scanning whilst also providing film cleaning systems. Get in touch to know more.
GeoDyn's PromptScan scanners capture an enormous amount of high-quality data at a rate of 500MB/s. Our Image processing module PromptProcessor rapidly processes the images with 16 bits per channel while conducting thorough quality checks, resulting in highly geometric accurate images that preserve the film's full dynamic range.
Our PromptDodger software module adaptively enhances brightness, contrast and color balance, to remove light fall-off and vignetting effects and yield uniformly color-balanced images stored at 8 bits per channel that still maintain the films full dynamic range. The resulting images can stored in the format of your choice, with or without pyramids and tiling.
While designed for PromptScan imagery, PromptDodger's superior enhancements also work on images from other systems. Curious about the improvements? Send us a couple of images scanned by your system at info@geodyn.com and we'll return the results for free for your review.
Do you have a good index of your frame locations? This is required to provide a spatial catalog of your archive and a critical input to further photogrammetric aerial triangulation processes. Especially with older films, such photo indices may not exist or are very poor quality, creating a massive challenge to geolocate the images, especially where the terrain and features have changed extensively. From the challenges and experience of many projects GeoDyn have developed advance processes to georeference the scanned imagery. When no photo index exists, we merge the frames into larger blocks and then use automated and manual searches to georeference the blocks, enabling the approximate position and orientation of each frame to be determined. If photo indices do exist, they can be quickly digitized and used to aid in the process.
The output of this process is a database of frame locations, rotation and scale or an ArcGIS Oriented Imagery Layer, enabling easy visualization of comprehensive imagery coverage in maps or web scenes.
We offer these services for PromptScan imagery or existing digital archives. Get in touch at info@geodyn.com to know more
Aerial Triangulation (AT) is the process of determining accurate location and orientation information about each frame and is required to enable processes such as orthorectification and stereo measurement. Once the imagery has gone through AT, the accurate location on the ground can be determined from the imagery.
AT requires bundle block adjustment which is a highly mathematical process to determine many camera orientation parameters. The process requires as input ground control points, which are points identified in the image for which accurate ground locations are known. For performing AT, GeoDyn utilises ArcGIS Pro Advanced, which includes the tools to perform measurement and computation. GeoDyn have further refined the methods and tools for higher efficiency.
GeoDyn have extensive experience in performing aerial triangulation on thousands of projects with cameras ranging from the 1930s, that had no camera calibration, to modern calibrated camera systems. Due to the lack of GPS in most aerial scanned imagery, AT requires a larger number of control points to be measured and GeoDyn have a very efficient process for their collection.
GeoDyn can perform the Aerial Triangulation as a service or provide the tools, training and support for organizations to efficiently perform the aerial triangulation using their own staff.
The output of the Georeferencing is a database that defines the accurate location and orientation parameters of each frame. GeoDyn delivers the results tables for input to photogrammetric software or as ArcGIS Oriented Imagery Layers in ArcGIS
Orthorectification is the process by which the individual scanned frames are transformed into accurate image maps that can be used as the basis for mapping applications for simple visualization of the terrain. Temporal or time-based orthomosaics created from scanned imagery provide such seamless image maps for multiple dates enabling the quick identification and digitization of objects that exist in the past as well as simplified change detection.
Prior to orthorectification the scanned images need to have aerial triangulation performed and a suitable digital terrain model needs to exist or be created. The full process requires orthorectification of the imagery, color balancing of imagery to removed trends and determination of seamlines for blending the images together to form orthomosaics and then quality assurance procedures to check the results.
GeoDyn provide services to perform orthorectification on imagery scanned using PromptScan or existing digital archives. We also provide a service by which we perform the whole process using low-resolution images and return the ArcGIS mosaic datasets for use on the full resolution imagery. This enables the organization to efficiently generate the full-resolution orthomosaics without the high-resolution imagery leaving the organization and all with minimal training.
The orthomosaics can be provided in a range of formats for direct use in GIS or publishing to the web.
Most organizations are interested in making their scanned aerial film archive accessible to the public to aid in an understanding of how the country has changed, as well as for research purposes. In some cases, organizations only provide free access to low-resolution versions of the imagery while requiring payment or registration for high-resolution access. GeoDyn can provide assistance and services to aid in setting-up these systems. We are partnered with, and recommend using, ArcGIS for the dissemination and visualization of imagery but have also provided solutions in other GIS and open source solutions.
For scanned imagery that has been georeferenced, we recommend using ArcGIS Oriented Imagery. If aerial triangulation has been performed on the imagery, we recommend enhancing the oriented imagery with the more accurate values. GeoDyn also provide ArcGIS mosaic datasets that enable on-the-fly orthorectification of the imagery as well as stereo viewing in ArcGIS Pro. Stereo viewing provides significantly higher interpretability of the imagery, as well as ability to take 3D measurements.
Once the imagery has been orthorectified, the imagery can be easily accessed in GIS applications or served as web services enabling them to be used in a wide range of applications, including digitizing features and change detection. We recommend creating temporal orthomosaics that enable users to easily see any location from multiple dates. These are best accessed via ArcGIS Catalog layers that provide simple spatial and temporal access in ArcGIS Pro or web applications.
GeoDyn provide consultancy and recommendations in how best to set up ArcGIS for such applications,
Features can be extracted both automatically and manually from imagery. Manual feature extraction requires a human to digitize the outline of the features either in 2D, from an orthomosaic, or in 3D from stereo imagery. GeoDyn can assist organizations with the most efficient process for both.
Features can also be extracted by automated method which have in recent years been enhanced significantly through the use of Artificial Intelligence. Two primary methods exist: Creation of Land Cover/Land Use maps based on image classification. Such raster maps categorize the land into a set to predefined classes such as agriculture, forest, houses, tracks and roads. These are very good for quantifying changes in the landscape, such as increase or reduction of forests. Secondly, object detection can be used to extract the extent of specific features. Both are more challenging on scanned areal imagery rather than modern aerial or satellite imagery due to age of the material and artifacts such as film grain and scratches that can exist on film and are recorded in the scanning process.
GeoDyn can provide services for both manual and automated feature extraction, but focus more on providing tailored training and recommendations to organizations on how to perform their own feature extraction using the extensive tools available in ArcGIS.
