Author: Dr Karen Joyce

Learn and Inspire

What is the benefit of building a circular data economy?

Over the years we’ve become accustomed to reusing, recycling, and upcycling a wide variety of different products and materials. At the same time, a greater awareness of the health and environmental impacts of practices such as fast food and fast fashion have also led calls for more sustainable ways of living. Collectively, this opens discussions

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Drone Data Processing

What is the best online drone mapping software?

You’ve bought your drone and are keen to get into mapping your local ecosystems. Or maybe you’re still pondering the best drone for your application. Either way, you’ll need to make a choice – do you go with online drone mapping software, or a desktop package? If you have a high end computer with a

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drone image of carrie bow cay
Drone Data Processing

Drone mapping an isolated reef in the Caribbean

People often ask me what inspired me to create GeoNadir. To be honest, first and foremost it was selfish intention to make my life easier. Since 2013 I have amassed a huge amount of drone mapping data, and I’ve always had the problem of how to store, process, and share it in a simple workflow.

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Yellow water billabong, Kakakdu National Park
Drone Mapping Tips & Tricks

Mapping with the IUCN habitat classification scheme

We create maps to simplify reality. To tell stories about the complex world around us in easily understandable ways. One of the ways in which we do this is to create discrete categories, and assign different features into these categories. For example, we may want to create a map of the different types of habitat

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Three people gathered around a mobile device looking very excited
Drone Mapping Tips & Tricks

Our ten best GeoNadir enhancements from 2022

In 2022 we were hugely fortunate to receive some funding through the Australian Government’s Boosting Female Founders Initiative that supercharged our GeoNadir development roadmap. Here’s our pick of the top ten GeoNadir enhancements that we’ve made to the user interface and user experience. We hope you love them as much as we do! 1. Create

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Person viewing drone imagery on a Dell laptop computer by Harriet Spark/Grumpy Turtle Creative
Drone Mapping Tips & Tricks

A ‘Dell-icious’ partnership for GeoNadir

At GeoNadir, we are heavy tech users. Of course there’s the drones, but we can’t forget the laptops, desktops, servers, storage devices, cloud systems etc. that underpin our daily operations. It’s therefore really important to us to connect with other similar businesses as we grow, and one of the reasons why I joined the Dell

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Drone Mapping Tips & Tricks

The Earth from above – Our story in motion

The making of the Earth from above It’s been many months in the making, and we are so excited to share our brand new video. This stunning animation helps tell the story of who we are and why we are here.   At GeoNadir, we are passionate about aligning with brands and people whose values

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open data
Learn and Inspire

Open Data: there’s no such thing as free

For the past 20 years, open data has been rapidly changing the face of earth observation applications and innovations.   Twenty years ago (yikes!) Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson crooned ‘the best things in life are free’ and it seems that Barack Obama agreed. By the end of 2008, the entire archive of Landsat data

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drone resolution
Drone Data Capture

What is the resolution of drone mapping?

Many people use drones for mapping to achieve greater resolution when compared to traditional aerial photography or satellite imagery. But what does ‘resolution’ really mean when considering remotely sensed data? There are actually three main types of resolution relevant here: spatial, spectral, and temporal. Let’s explore each below in the context of drone data collection.

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dog with sunglasses looking cool
Product Updates

Ten cool features you might have missed on GeoNadir

We launched our GeoNadir FAIR drone data platform in March 2021 and have been rapidly developing features as we go. With an agile development mentality, we’re constantly pushing updates, bug fixes, and new features to make sure our users get the best experience possible with sharing and exploring drone data around the world. So if you haven’t

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earth observation data
Drone Data Capture

Earth observation data reveals the when and where of mangrove dieback

Earth observation data reveals valuable information that you should know. In the wake of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (#COP26) there’s even more than usual climate related information hitting the headlines. And this just landed from Professor Peter Macreadie and team from Deakin University (and others), reminding us to consider the role of blue carbon ecosystems (e.g. mangroves,

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sea cucumber population map
Drone Data Capture

Calling drone pilots help map the sea cucumbers population

Sea Cucumbers have threatened species and it’s critical we create the largest population map of their habitats. The first time I flew my drone on Heron Reef about five years ago I was blown away by what I would now be able to map and monitor. I was looking for live coral and I certainly

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how to map with a drone
Drone Data Capture

How to Map With a Drone (Top 10 Tips)

How to map with a drone: I know that lots of people love flying drones, but I’m not one of them! Yet what I do love is the #earthobservation data that I can capture with my drone. I’ve been working with remote sensing data since the late 1990’s and know full well that not all data

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Mother Earth’s Paparazzi
Drone Data Capture

Drone Pilots Reinvent Themselves as Mother Earth’s Paparazzi

Mother Earth’s Paparazzi is a term used to describe drone enthusiasts who capture images of mother earth to help protect at-risk ecosystems. Over the past seven years, I have captured tens of thousands of beautiful drone images. But I don’t consider myself a skilled photographer – I’m simply lucky that my subject is stunning! And

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drone crash
Drone Data Capture

Let’s Talk About Drone Crashes

Drone crashes do happen, but there are ways to avoid them. Find out how in this article. It doesn’t matter if I’m talking to kids or adults, the most common question I’m asked about droning is if I’ve crashed. And while I can’t say that watching a 35kg beast crash is the highlight of my

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Marine ground control
Drone Data Capture

How can I get ground control in a marine environment?

I’m sure that my certified surveyor friends cringe when they hear about our methods of ‘Marine ground control’ on the reef! But here goes… What is ‘ground control’? No, we’re not calling Major Tom… Ground control points (GCPs) are points or features on the surface of the earth (or even underwater) with a known location.

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drone hand catch
Drone Data Capture

Ten Tips for Catching a Drone Safely with your Hands.

Catching a drone by hand can be dangerous! Find out how to catch a drone with your hand safely in this article. Get more information today! I often joke that drones are like flying Edward Scissorhands. Those propellers can really do some damage if they come into contact with anything other than air! Just check

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upload drone data
Drone Data Capture

Drone data…don’t lose it, use it!

How many drone datasets do you suppose there might be around the world? Discover more about how to upload drone data. I consider myself to be a biographer for Mother Earth. I tell stories of her beauty, challenge, and change, using drones and satellites as my scientific illustrators. Over the years I have amassed many

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optimal drone flying height
Drone Data Capture

How to figure out the optimal drone flying height for mapping!

People frequently ask about how to calculate the optimal drone flying height, however, it’s the wrong question to ask. What is more important is to understand the size of the feature/s that you are trying to map. It may come as no surprise that as you increase the altitude of your drone, you are able

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what is orthomosaic
Drone Data Capture

What is an Orthomosaic?

Orthomosaic, the Short Answer: The output from a process where a number of overlapping photos (e.g. from a drone or aerial camera) are stitched together with distortions removed to create a complete and continuous image representation or map of a portion of the earth. The orthomosaic below is made up of 283 individual drone photographs.

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