Summer 2015 - 85
www.turftrends.com
Aerial mapping and Near
Infrared (NIR) technology
used in golf course and turf
management isn't new—but using
small, low cost drones with the
capabilities for low cost mapping
and NIR imaging is.
The great thing about these small
drones is that you can use them at
your own convenience and timing.
They can even be flown for before
and after changes or adjustments
and processed on the same day.
After groups of images
(orthomosaics) are processed,
they can be easily marked for
geo-rectification and processed
into KMZ files that can be overlaid
on Google Earth. KMZ is a file
extension for a place mark file used
by Google Earth. KMZ stands for
Keyhole Markup language Zipped.
It is a compressed version of
a KML (Keyhole Markup Language)
file. Keyhole was the founding
company of the Earth Viewer
software that Google Earth was
built upon.
KMZ files can contain place
marks featuring a custom name;
the latitudinal and longitudinal
coordinates for the location,
and 3D model data. KMZ files
can be opened by Google Earth,
or unzipped with a compression
utility, such as WinZip on Windows,
MacZip for Macintosh users, and
Zip and UnZip for UNIX systems.
Google Earth is very user friendly
APPLICATIONS
GOLF COURSE
MANAGEMENT
OLDHAM & RIO THOMAS
