The Challenge

• The Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project needed to know the heights of electrical lines relative to adjacent vegetation to determine the risk of bird collisions along a powerline corridor.

• Fieldwork would take considerable time and effort, given the remote and rugged terrain.

• Existing lidar data was insufficient for discriminating the powerlines, and new lidar data collection would be cost-prohibitive.

RMH and Simplex solution 

• RMH teamed up with Simplex Mapping Solutions to survey the powerline corridor using their CaMundo mapping system, designed collect nadir and oblique views on one pass.

Results 

• The surveys resulted in 2D and 3D geospatial data products: a high resolution ortho-mosaic, a digital surface model, and a photogrammetric point cloud.

• 3D vectors of the powerlines were accurately derived using sampling based on catenary modeling.

• Download a presentation describing the unique process.