Implementation of Aerial Panoramic Photography for Environmental Studies Through VR Experiences

Abstract

Technology allows us to experience situations from a different perspective. This project investigated many parts and techniques for better VR experiences. Aerial photography: Aerial photography provides a broad view of the changes in a landscape. However, aerial photography cannot offer a microscopic perspective of the changes with novel panoramas and landscape photos. A parallax compensation algorithm for stitching videos enables the user to reduce the time required to fix stitching issues in post-production. The experiment results indicated that the optimum camera height was 500 m, slightly higher than the clouds. An appropriate number of spatial samples were selected during photography to obtain high-quality images. The researchers avoided restricted flight areas and designed the image acquisition method according to the selected flight path, which were then combined in the post-processing step. Those 360-degree-aerial-images trigger young people's environmental awareness, which enhances the creator's sense of environmental protection.