Birdi Glossary

This glossary defines common terms that you might see as you're working in Birdi, or throughout our help centre.

Kayley Greenland avatar
Written by Kayley Greenland
Updated over a week ago

A

Angles

Pitch, roll, yaw these describe the different angles which the camera has taken the photograph. The best way to understand them is imagining how the drone is flying and where the camera is pointing (see below).

Annotations

An annotation is extra information associated with a particular point. In Birdi we use annotation as labels to name the shapefiles, different points of interest and drawings.

Asset

An asset is an item of interest, generally used as a term when working with high volume capture. An asset can have multiple images assigned to it and is treated as an objective. A mission may contain 100+ assets to capture.

Asset assignment

Is the action of assigning images to an asset for inspection.

B

BIM

Building information modelling is a process supported by various tools to generate and manage digital representations of physical and functional characteristics of places.

C

Capture Request

A capture request is the term used to describe a job between a pilot and client, a mission is created and holds all the information required under objectives. The request is to formally ask a pilot to accept or decline the job.

Contours

Contours are a collection of lines found on maps that show mountains, valleys and landforms. Contours are measured from sea level. If contours are closely spaced, it means that the land is very steep, if the contours are widely spaced, it means the land is flatter.

Cross Grid

Is the type of flight pattern you require your pilots to fly to satisfy an objective. A cross hatch pattern or a “grid” pattern can sometimes be helpful in the same way as a higher overlap can be. It ensures that images are taken from multiple sides, with the overlap required for optimal processing. It can be very useful in areas that have semi-dense tree cover, as well as in city scape or developed settings where you need to see between buildings.

D

Data set

This is the set of data attached to an objective, this data set can contain many file types associated with that objective and can be used to request processing outputs.

DEM

Digital elevation model (broad category term for elevations), digital terrain model (strips everything out just ground) or digital surface model (keeps everything, trees signs houses etc.)

(these generate insights - 3d, gradient, volume etc)

E

Exif Data

Exchangeable image file format is a standard that specifies the formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras. It holds a range of metadata attached to the file, this can include date and time of capture, resolution, dimension, camera settings and more.

F

Freehand

The freehand tool allows you to draw polygon shapes on the map and label as needed.

G

GCP

Ground control points are markers set out on the ground used during a capture with exact GPS coordinates overlaid allowing data to have accurate GPS coordinates (aids in overlapping and comparing accurately). GCPs are updated as needed to continually improve Landsat data. GCPs can be downloaded and used as reference data.

GIS

Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer system that analyses and displays geographically referenced information. It uses data that is attached to a unique location.

GNDVI

The Green Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI) method is a vegetation index for estimating photo synthetic activity and is a commonly used vegetation index to determine water and nitrogen uptake into the plant canopy (how healthy the vegetation is).

GNSS

Global Navigation Satellite System, during a mission a beaker / pole 180cm above the control point is used to tie the relative position of the GCP to the GPS location

GSD

Ground sampling distance is a real world representation of a pixel relative to the earth i.e. 1 pixel is 3 cm, Lower the GSD - the more images and lower to the ground e.g mound of dirt 3cm is pretty good extrapolate by 3 for degree of error so worst case 9cm error.

H

Hill shade

Hybrid between the 2d and 3d models. It can show the DTM and casts shadows to show shapes / hill shade, making it easier to identify elevated areas.

I

Inspection

Is used to carefully examine the images taken, define a status and either pass or fail an asset.

J

Jeojason

Is a file format used to create boundaries / lines/ areas (shapefiles).

JPG

JPG, also known as JPEG, is a file format that can contain an image. JPG is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography.

K

KML

Keyhole markup language - provide pilote dataset, used to create a boundary for pilots to fly (type of shapefile).

L

Line

The line tool allows you to draw on the map and label as needed. You can use this tool to measure in metres of kilometres.

M

Marker

The marker tool allows you to mark areas of interest on the map, this could be related to an objective within the mission or for other uses. You can colour and label these points.

Media

This is the name for all the files attached to a mission or project within the platform.

Mission

A mission is a container for all the requirements needed for a capture request to be actioned. It contains the mission details, specs for the pilots, documentation, uploaded media, processed outputs, annotation and more.

N

Nadine

Drone angle which is directly beneath it i.e. bomb shot / overhead.

O

Oblique

Angle which is not 90 (straight down) ie drone image captured on an angle other than nadine.

Objective

An objective is a container for detailed information for a pilot to capture. A mission can contain multiple different objectives with different criterias to complete a capture request.

Organisation

An organisation is a group of people in a business, we have used this term to describe your team structure within the platform. Organisation owners and organisation users, a team can be made up of many uses but only one owner.

Organisation Owner

An owner is the account administrator of your workspace, they have full privileges and access to manage the account settings, team, billing and subscriptions. If you are a single user, sole trader or pilot we will refer to you as an organisation owner as this has the highest level of access to the platform.

Organisation User

A user is someone who is in your organisation team, they can have access depending on the permissions you have set within the management tool.

Orthomosaic

Stitching the photos together to create one large photo / map of all individual photos.

Overlap

How much of the images taken is overlapping the previous image (front and side) i.e. 75% I 75% means 75% of the image will be the same as the image front, back and side to side.

P

Photogrammetry

Extracting 3D images from 2D photographs. In processing it creates a single source of truth for the photo (key points etc) which can then be used in ortho and DEMS. Struggles with water, shadows similarity in surfaces.

Point clouds

A point cloud is a set of data points in space. The points may represent a 3D shape or object. Each point position has its set of Cartesian coordinates (X, Y, Z). It’s part of the process to create 3D models - it is different to a 3D mesh which is full 3D zoom in and out and around) more accurate than mesh which would need to distort the image in some way.

Polygon

The polygon tool is used to draw shapes on the map, they can outline full areas attached to your objective requirements. You can colour and label these shapes.

PPK

Post-Processed Kinematic or PPK is a GNSS data correction technology which is used in surveying and mapping to obtain high-precision positioning data (can be a backup to RTK).

Project

A project is a container for mission details, data and the processed outputs you have requested.

Q

No glossary items.

R

Raster

Types of images that are produced when scanning or photographing e.g. raster is an image made up of pixels.

RAW

A RAW file is the uncompressed and unprocessed image data captured by a digital camera or scanner's sensors. Shooting in RAW captures a high level of image detail, with large file sizes and lossless quality.

Rolling Shutter Speed

A rolling shutter is a type of image capture in cameras that records the frame line by line on an image sensor instead of capturing the entire frame all at once. The rolling shutter sensor scans from the top of the image to the bottom, so the top of the frame is recorded slightly earlier than the bottom.

RTK

Real-time kinematic positioning is an in built GPS system in the drone, making it much more accurate than the satellite GPS. Often used in conjunction with GCPs and to correct for common errors in current satellite navigation.

S

Single Grid

Is the type of flight pattern you require your pilots to fly to satisfy an objective. Suitable for most environments. It ensures that images are taken with the overlap required for optimal processing.

T

Tags

Is a label attached to someone or something for the purpose of identification or to give other information. You can attach tags to images and use these to filter a larger data set.

U

No glossary items.

V

No glossary items.

W

Workspace

Workspace refers to your unique login to the platform, if working alone or with a team it is the place you will find all your missions, data and processed outputs.

Workspace administrator

Administrator is a permission type you can add to a user. Workspace admins can manage members, missions and other administrative functions in your workspace.

X

No glossary items.

Y

No glossary items.

Z

No glossary items.

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