Piero Toffanin on Drones and Geospatial.

On Running OpenDroneMap Natively on Windows

February 12th, 2019

OpenDroneMap has been quickly gaining a lot of interest. Since we’ve managed to put a UI (WebODM) and ported it (via docker) on all major platforms, it’s usage has increased hundred folds. The problem still remains that even with installers that help “hide” the complexities of docker, Windows setups in particular tend to be sub-optimal due to the VM overhead of MobyLinux and the various, frequent hiccups that docker has on Windows (including totally losing a container’s network for just […]

Quitting Social Media

February 11th, 2019

As of today, I’m joining the crowd of people quitting social media. I joined Facebook in 2007 and haven’t used it much for the past 3 years. I used to like its ability to keep me in touch with friends from oversea, but for a while the platform has just become a brain-dead tool for stealing people’s time via gambling tactics and mind exploitation. None of the people I care about show up in my feeds, and it doesn’t matter […]

The Website Obesity Crisis [Repost]

January 14th, 2019

I don’t usually repost other people’s articles, but this one is worth reading (even if just for the laughs). https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm I’m certainly guilty, sometimes.

The Free Rider Problem

November 30th, 2018

The Free Rider Problem applies to free and open source software really well. If you’re a maintainer, read it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem

Move Docker To Another Location on Linux

October 17th, 2018

Docker can take a toll on your disk space. Fortunately you don’t have to keep the files in /var/lib/docker and on certain cloud providers like Digital Ocean it’s cheaper to attach a new block volume than to upgrade a droplet to get more disk space. After you’ve decided on a location, simply do: Change /lib/systemd/system/docker.service: Then: When you’ve verified things are working, remove the old docker directory.

Toward Real-Time Drone Mapping

August 18th, 2018

OpenDroneMap does an excellent job at post-processing aerial images. Fly the drone, download the images, process, wait a few hours and get your maps and 3D models. What about real-time? Real-time reconstructions present several challenges and requires a different approach. For starters, using only images as input, without an RTK system and accurate IMUs (better GPS and inertial sensors) you just can’t estimate the camera positions quickly enough. By relaying just on standard GPS and the on-board camera pitch/yaw/roll readings, […]

On the Importance of UX in Decentralized Applications

July 29th, 2018

Have you heard of Mastodon? It’s a decentralized and open source twitter-like platform using open standards such as ActivityPub to function. Among many other features, it has no ads and a chronological order feed. In short, it’s awesome. I’ve tried to explain to my wife the concept of Mastodon. “It’s like Twitter, but you can install it on your own machine. And you are not isolated, if somebody installs their own Twitter, my Twitter can communicate with their Twitter”. Her reaction was like: […]

First VR Toy Project – Katana and Scabbard

June 19th, 2018

As an Aikido practitioner, I find the possibilities of VR very interesting for introducing new people to Japanese martial arts. Here’s a toy demo made in two hours. I’m hopeful I’ll find some time to expand this into a full game at some point in the future…

Open Source Software and the Constructal Law, or why the FOSS is strong

June 16th, 2018

For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it. (Adrian Bejan) If you’ve never heard of the Constructal Law, a good place to start is Wikipedia. While we can criticize at length its universal validity as a “law”, there’s some pretty good evidence that it applies well to human-made processes and designs. And software is a human-made design. How […]

GIS Icons, Maple Project

May 22nd, 2018

It’s been a while since I’ve designed some icons. I’ve based some of them out of the IcoMoon dataset, made some from scratch and colored them to match a palette. These are going to be available as part of VirtualGIS‘s first Maple release. Stay tuned.