A drone flight was performed to view several sink holes that opened in Alachua County, FL as a result of severe rainfall from Hurricane Irma. After recording a brief video, nearly three dozen photos were taken above the largest sink hole to determine its volume. The photos, which exhibited high overlap, were then processed with photogrammetry software to provide an orthomosaic, a digital surface model (DSM), and a three-dimensional point cloud that can be interactively tilted and rotated.
The DSM was imported into ArcGIS and volumetric calculations were performed using an array of spatial analysis tools. A summary of the results is available at Analysis Summary and Interactive Point Cloud which includes a link to the interactive three-dimensional point cloud.
The
methodology applied to the sink hole calculations is the same that
construction and aggregate companies are now using to measure stockpile volumes exploiting drone photographs.
