Description |
This portion of the data release presents digital surface models (DSM) and hillshade images of the intertidal zones at Puget Creek and Dickman Mill Park, Tacoma, WA. The DSMs have a resolution of 2.5 centimeters per pixel and were derived from structure-from-motion (SfM) processing of aerial imagery collected with an unmanned aerial system (UAS) on 2019-06-03. Unlike a digital elevation model (DEM), the DSM represents the elevation of the highest object within the bounds of a cell. Vegetation, buildings and other objects have not been removed from the data. In addition, data artifacts resulting from noise in the original imagery have not been removed. The raw imagery used to create this DSM was acquired using a UAS fitted with a Ricoh GR II digital camera featuring a global shutter. The UAS was flown on pre-programmed autonomous flight lines at an approximate altitude of 50 meters above ground level (AGL). The flight lines were oriented roughly shore-parallel and were spaced to provide approximately 70 percent overlap between images from adjacent lines. The camera was triggered at 1 Hz using a built-in intervalometer. The imagery was geotagged using positions from the UAS onboard single-frequency autonomous GPS. Twelve temporary ground control points (GCPs) were distributed throughout each survey area to establish survey control. The GCPs consisted of a combination of small square tarps with black-and-white cross patterns and "X" marks placed on the ground using temporary chalk. The GCP positions were measured using post-processed kinematic (PPK) GPS, using corrections from a GPS base station located approximately 5 kilometers from the study area. The DSMs and hillshade images have been formatted as cloud optimized GeoTIFFs with internal overviews and masks to facilitate cloud-based queries and display. For file naming purposes the spatial resolution has been rounded to the nearest centimeter in the file names (for instance, the 2.5-cm resolution Puget Creek DSM is named PugetCreek_2019-06-03_DSM_3cm.tif). [More]
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