Loc8 Software Helping Find Missing Persons with a Drone / UAS – Another Tool in the Toolbox

As a follow on to our blog post Drones for Search and Rescue (SAR) – Another Tool in The Toolbox,  where we discussed how incredibly useful drones are.  A search and rescue drone used by emergency services, such as police, firefighters or volunteer rescue teams, is ideal for searching over vast areas for missing persons and crime victims in need of rescue and in any environment.  Search times can be significantly reduced while limiting potential risk to the party being rescued as well as rescuers.

In 2018 DJI reported that 133 people around the world were rescued after being found with drones.  Also, of note is that 2018 marked a new milestone in public safety drone use, as four people were rescued by drones in three separate incidents on two continents on a single day.  

These numbers are undoubtedly higher as more search and rescue organizations discover the benefits of drones.  While many search and rescue drones are outfitted with infrared or thermal and high-resolution cameras to help assist in finding missing people.  This is not always the case.  Many of times, Searcher use their drones with their regular cameras to take aerial photos of a large area where people are reported missing or lost.

This is where the challenge begins, how do you search, sift or squint through often hundreds and hundreds of aerial photos looking for the missing individual(s)?

According to Gene Robinson. “The squinting process is where searchers comb through photos one at a time for any details that might point to recently disturbed earth or a walking trail, and for the colors of the clothes the missing person was last seen wearing. Different colors and textures represent potential clues that could lead to a recovery. A speck of blue on the screen points to a color that is rarely found in nature, and in Texas, when people go missing near ranch land, blue is often the color of the jeans they're last seen wearing.”   A SAR study shows humans are only capable of spotting a target 30% of the time when reviewing digital images.

Loc8’s software image scanning process can dramatically increase your success rate in finding your target!  Loc8 is a software solution that empowers search and rescue agencies and emergency responders to quickly scan images from aerial drone footage to locate missing people or objects by using image scanning technology that isolates specific pixel clusters.  Loc8 can go through thousands of images, much faster than is humanly possible, to locate specific color values that might represent blue in the missing persons jeans.  Once Loc8 identifies a target in an individual image it will circle it in red for quick and easy identification by the searcher.

The final product includes a map with an aerial view and a quality report that is produced with mission specific data with Latitude and Longitude coordinates of the image.  This can be passed on to searchers in the field to locate the target.

Loc8’s software is a very exciting advancement in search and rescue that I have now utilized on training and actual searches and may help your SAR team find missing persons faster.  Loc8’s software should be - another tool in the toolbox!

High-altitude drone captures rare view of Mount Everest

I'm amazed that Renan Ozturk pulled off photographing Everest in a stunning 360-degree panorama by drone at 23,000 ft in 2019.  It's an incredible achievement considering the odds against him. Extreme wind, elevation, and cold are often no goes for a drone to fly.  From what I understand, it was a Freefly Alta X , drones like this aren't typically designed to fly half that elevation. Cold batteries don't produce enough lift for safe takeoff. And drones will not come back if the wind exceeds the drone's max airspeed. I lost one this way.

Click on image for larger photo

Expedition Greenland: Jimmy Chin Takes the DJI Mavic Zoom for a Spin

Drone Below November 5, 2018

The professional mountain photographer and filmmaker who is known for working at some of the most remote places on earth, Jimmy Chin, has been recently involved in a new film. This time, Chin collaborates with DJI to explore its flagship drone, the DJI Mavic Zoom, taking it to an expedition which follows the climber Alex Honnold as he became the first person to ever solo climb the 3,000ft El Capitan Wall at the Yosemite mountains.

In his 20-year career, Chin is still inspired by the challenge of exploring new places and visiting mountains in remote places. For this Greenland trip where he films using the Mavic Zoom drone by DJI alongside a normal DSLR kit, Chin films the massive mountain grip through the 4K lens of the Mavic 2 Zoom, capturing full footage of the adventure.

The Mavic 2 Zoom: “Multi-Tool”

As he described the drone, it is a “multi-tool” that can be used for everything from high production value shots to scouting locations. For those who don’t know, the DJI Mavic 2 comes in two versions – the high-end ‘Pro’ version that has a 1-inch sensor and the less expensive and more flexible ‘Zoom’ drone which he used in Greenland.

From high-production value to “dolly zoom” scenes and tracking shots to scouting locations and routes, Chin noted that it might take hours to get up to a certain peak – but with the Mavic 2 Zoom the hours are made easier and more remote, allowing him (and the entire team) to go in search for great-looking sceneries and look out for hazards in a remote way.

Chin also points out to the fact that in such extreme conditions, gear needs to be reliable and easy to use. That is why the DJI Mavic 2 Zoom exceeds his expectations. In his own words, Chin stated:

“You need equipment that’s intuitive, and which you don’t have to spend a bunch of time figuring out how to make it work” because, as he says, “a lot of your mental bandwidth is taken up by making sure you’re being safe.”

As one can tell from seeing the videos, the aerial tracking sequences that show Deslaurier descending down the mountain slopes were among the favorite shots from the trip for Chin. Obviously, these are very difficult angles to get when you are high up in the remote areas – but for Chin – they were a challenge that he took and worked on with a great deal of passion and expertise.

“Incredible” – A Drone That Films While its Carried in the Top of (Your) Pack

Traditionally, these shots are also seen as high production value shots, and “being able to  create them with a drone that can be carried in the top of your pack is incredible,” according to Chin. Aside from praising the portability and flexibility of the DJI Mavic 2 Zoom, Chin also praises the quality of the video that it can capture.

“You need a camera which offers high quality, because shooting in a location like Greenland, you know it might not be possible to ever go back. Every shot is potentially a once-in-a-lifetime shot,” he confidently said.