apple powerbook used in photography of entire Calif. Coastline!

solrac

solrac

Mac Ninja
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0210/02103101nikond1xenviron.asp

Environmental activist Ken Adelman with his Nikon D1X, Robinson R-44 Helicopter and an Apple PowerBook is taking thousands of photographs of the California coastline. His images are being used to identify illegal seawalls and for other environmental uses. So far he's taken 7,000 images, and expects this to rise to 10,000 when he's completed the entire coastline. All of the images are available on his website californiacoastline.org. "The camera is linked with a cable to the helicopter's global positioning system, and to an Apple Power Book laptop. Every three seconds, he snaps a picture, and the exact longitude, latitude and altitude are recorded."
 
This project is awesome. This is one of those groundbreaking activities that changes the world. I was looking at these pictures over the weekend. When you download the highest resolution image you are down to about 25cm resolution. We easily looked up places we knew along the coast. This is like science fiction to be able to select images like this. The intended purpose is to monitor illegal use of the coastline. However, now that real data is available who knows what people will do with this? Since the view is from a helicopter flying over the water you get a view which is often not obtainable from a car or even while walking; all from the comfort of your browser.
 
this is the kind of stuff i'll get to do when i graduate with my degree in GIS. It's freakin' awesome. I couldn't ask for a better job than to be able to be outdoors and work on computers...
 
heheheh cool! I found my house! I live in Manhattan Beach just south of LAX 2 blocks up from the beach. I'm in his photo! I'll circle it and upload it later I guess... if I remember hahah
 
well, i didn't find my house, but i did find my local beach where i took photos of the tidepools and shared them awhile back. i also found my old neighborhood in the LA area (just a ways south of you solrac). next time i have some time i'll have to look for the places i used to live in San Diego.


Cool thing to share solrac!!

oh, here's the road i take to go into san francisco

:D
 
Originally posted by Ed Spruiell
well, i didn't find my house, but i did find my local beach where i took photos of the tidepools and shared them awhile back. i also found my old neighborhood in the LA area (just a ways south of you solrac). next time i have some time i'll have to look for the places i used to live in San Diego.


Cool thing to share solrac!!

oh, here's the road i take to go into san francisco

:D
Click to expand...

Where did you used to live south of me?
 
Hey Greystroke, if you're going to be working with GIS aren't you pretty limited to ArcView and Windows? Just wondering...
 
Unfortunately as of right now yes. :( There is a linux version but it's pretty buggy. all i can say is no way i'd be using a wintel comp. gonna get virtual pc for that :D
 
Where did you used to live south of me?
Click to expand...

you can actully see my house that i lived in while a teenager in this picture. see the small grassy area towards the upper left hand. that is an elementary school. i lived on the far side of it. i lived in one of these apt. buildings for awhile in SD. first time i cohabited with a girlfriend. I also lived here. see the empty lot on the upper right corner of the intersection, there used to be 3 tiny houses there and i lived in the middle one. :D

and lastly solrac, one of my favorite places to hang out while in my mid to late teens. recognise it? :p
 
That's super cool, Ed. You used to hang out at Hermosa Beach pier?? That rocks. I go there all the time. So where do you live these days?
 
actually i hung out more around the boardwalk and beach than the pier. I also liked going to the Lighthouse for jazz and to the Strand for movies. and there used to be this great mexican restraunt right on pch that let you bring in your own beer and didn't worry about age. Mama Rosa's i think it was called. they had the killer burrittos. :D

of course all the rest of the good restraunts and clubs were in redondo and torrance at the time. so i spent considerable amounts of time there as well.

i figure if you could find your house, then you must not live far from pch, neither do i but they call it cabrillo highway up here. so theoretically i live just up the road from you. :p

i don't think you can see my house in the pic as we are in sort of a valley but it's in that general area somewhere. now show us where you live like you said you would. I don't think you need to circle the house, just the area would work fine.
 
ok here it is!
This is damn hard to find anything on this picture, at least in this neighborhood!!! I think I got it, though...

wheres-my-house.jpg
 
wow, so you're in north manhatten, almost to those dam refineries and literally just below the airport. at least the wind normally blows inland and the planes don't go directly over your home at low altitude, eh?

thanks for sharing. :)

so, are there any other calif. coastal dwellers out there?
 
nope no planes here!!
if you go 10 minutes north, your under refineries, planes, smog, and sewage LITERALLY!!

But this is just south of all that crap and it's a really cool town. Lucky to live here!!
 
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