As I was looking back at where EMMU had come from and where
EMMU Aerial is today, it was obvious we had come a long way and learned a lot
along the way, mostly through our emergency mobile mapping and oblique aerial
photography systems.
From the early days of Emergency Mobile Mapping Unit or EMMU in 2000 where we provided a true mobile emergency GIS
response capability with our GIS quick response trailer to support wildland
firefighters, first responders and search and rescue
professionals. To the GEO-Photo System, with georeferenced oblique
aerial photography, providing invaluable, fast and accurate geographical
information and imagery for various government agencies. All well
before UAS or “drones” were even considered to be a viable tool of such information,
the GEO-Photo system had proven itself.
The GEO-Photo system primarily use was for handheld vertical
and oblique photography, captured from existing program aircraft for quick turn
geo-tagged intelligence photographs. For many emergency, police,
military and intelligence gathering operations, these crisp high-resolution
photographs with embedded GPS coordinates and associated GIS data was required
to conduct disaster response, mission planning and mission analysis for
emergency operations.
The GEO-Photo system was composed of a hand held high
resolution digital camera, GPS and gyro stabilizer. All with the
capability to record GPS latitude and longitude, elevation and direction data
within a high resolution digital still photograph. The camera system
was capable of storing several hundred photographs on compact flash
memory. But most importantly, this system was portable and not
mounted to any aircraft, capable of moving from aircraft to aircraft in the
hands of the operator. Today EMMU Aerial has drones for this
mission, but the legacy and capabilities of the GEO-Photo system are still
around.
