Which cameras can be used for precision agriculture

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There are two major types of cameras that can be used for estimating the health of plants: multispectral and modified cameras. Pix4Dmapper can process both types of imagery, the choice of filter/band depends entirely on the intent.

 
Example: For example, the red and NIR bands are most suited to compute NDVI (related to the health of the plant), and red edge bands are appropriate for the Chlorophyll Index (related to the amount of chlorophyll in the plant).

Multispectral, narrow band cameras

These cameras are designed for fidelity in order to be as accurate as possible when measuring the reflectance of objects. Multispectral cameras can come with sun irradiance sensors and/or a calibration target to properly estimate the incoming sunlight irradiance effect and compute absolute reflectance. For more information: Radiometric calibration targetRadiometric corrections.

Such cameras include Sequoia, Multispec 4C and Micasense RedEdge. For more information: How to process Sequoia imagery.

Modified standard cameras

By carefully changing the filters of a normal camera, it is possible to get wide band infrared measurements. However, it is critical to follow a certain workflow to obtain somewhat accurate relative measurements. Many companies offer to either modify cameras or sell already modified cameras. For more information: Camera Requirements for Precision AgricultureHow to set the band weights for modified cameras (NIR,R,G and NIR,G,B).

 
Important: It important to note that despite their low cost and easy availability, modified cameras' results are much more complicated to interpret, the accuracy is hard to assess and the results may vary significantly with time.

 

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5 comments

  • Eddison Araya

    https://support.pix4d.com/hc/en-us/articles/202561429-Example-Datasets-Available-for-Download-Agriculture

     

    Hola un gusto en saludarte! espero hayas tenido una linda navidad! Quiero accesar a ese link de amarillo para ver los set de datos, pero está caido! no puedo accesar Me ayudas a accesar?

     

    Gracias

     

    Eddison

  • Avatar
    Momtanu (Pix4D)

    Hi Eddison, I have replied to your personal support ticket. Have a good day!

  • Eddison Araya

    Si muchas gracias, no sabía como hacer la pregunta, me daba error por correo y escribí varias veces. Acabo de mandar otra pregunta por medio del ticket del correo

     

    Gracias

     

    Eddison

  • Rubens Coelho

    Dear Friends ... I would like to know if Pix4D mapper can support Dual Camera Micasense (10 bands) ?   For research purposes (agriculture dual camera) what would be better for me: Pix4DMapper or Pix4DFields ?  Is there any video / tutorial  Pix4D Mapper and dual camera micasense? 

  • Avatar
    Momtanu (Pix4D)

    Pix4DMapper does support the dual camera:  https://support.micasense.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049894753. Pix4DFields has developed a lot since the start and now we have some new features that would be helpful for research purposes (for example, trial plots, you can export statistics of several regions together). Pix4DFields can also process the dual camera. You can see the webinar here: https://www.pix4d.com/webinar-introducing-pix4dfields-1-9. Processing in Pix4DFields is pretty straightforward, you can just import all the images and start processing. Hope it helps :)

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