Parrot partners with Rapid Imaging on live AR mapping

Image: Parrot

Drone company Parrot is partnering with Rapid Imaging, a technology provider delivering geospatial augmented reality (AR) and situational awareness solutions to government and enterprise users.

The partnership pairs Parrot ANAFI USA platform drones and the FreeFly SDK with Rapid Imaging’s SmartCam3D SDK, a geospatial augmented reality and situational awareness platform for unmanned aircraft systems.

SmartCam3D overlays geospatial data such as street vectors, road names, points of interest, polygons and other pertinent map entities onto real-time, full-motion video (FMV) provided by ANAFI USA’s 4K HDR video, 32x zoom and live video streaming capabilities. This provides mission personnel with advanced situational awareness as they perform critical drone operations.

SmartCam3D also allows end-users to interact with live drone video in the same ways they would a map display, such as dropping a pin to mark a location or geocoding a selection from the real-time video stream.

These situational awareness capabilities provide opportunities across a variety of mission sets: airborne law enforcement, insurance, industrial inspections, natural disaster response, real estate and search-and-rescue operations.

The SmartCam3D SDK is a turn-key solution for UAS platform providers seeking to enrich their offerings with geospatial augmented reality and situational awareness tools. Features include geospatial AR, allowing users to enjoy a “Google Maps” type experience but with live drone video as the background layer rather than a satellite image. Granular declutter options allow users to select the types of map entities displayed on their live video feed.

Custom GIS data integration allows users to import their own geospatial data to display. Pin-dropping allows users to mark locations within the live video with AR annotations and communicate those locations to a map display.

Also, forward- and reverse-geocoding allow professional drone pilots to designate a point in the video and immediately receive the geospatial data associated with that point (lat/long or address) or designate a location and mark the location with an AR annotation within the video display.

Finally, cross-Cuing allowing end-users to simultaneously navigate a full-motion-video display and map display.

“Leveraging Parrot ANAFI USA’s precise GPS coordinates and advanced flight features, SmartCam3D® provides first responders and military personnel with up-to-date geospatial AR overlays on live video, combining the benefits of both a 2D map display and a Full-Motion-Video display into a single operating picture.” said Jerome Bouvard, director of Strategic Partnerships, Parrot. “This new partnership will provide easy-to-comprehend data to better assist first responders into making quick and accurate decisions during high-stress missions.”

All data captured through SmartCam3D during sensitive missions is secure, as Parrot drone users must opt-in to share flight data with Parrot’s secure to store footage. Parrot ANAFI USA also features secure digital (SD) card encryption, which ensures complete protection of photos and videos if the drone or the SD card is lost.

The SmartCam3D SDK is available for Android, iOS, Linux, and Windows systems for use with ANAFI and ANAFI USA platform drones.