It would be nice if we didn't need to have a gimbal on the plane. The gimbal adds drag, weight, mounting complexity, and batteries to worry about. One idea is to adjust for a skewed image using the data from an IMU (inertial measurement unit). So, given a perfect IMU measurement, can you do image processing to make the image into an image as if it was pointed straight down?
First part of this task is probably to go somewhere high up and take pictures at various angles, while recording accelerometer data with your phone (there are apps that do this). Then, go into the software with your data and images and see if you can make the non-orthogonal images into orthogonal ones. Maybe put two targets on the ground, one directly below the camera and another somewhere further away to prove that your corrected image is as good as the orthogonal one.
It's also possible skew correction is not practical, which would still be a good thing to find out.
It would be nice if we didn't need to have a gimbal on the plane. The gimbal adds drag, weight, mounting complexity, and batteries to worry about. One idea is to adjust for a skewed image using the data from an IMU (inertial measurement unit). So, given a perfect IMU measurement, can you do image processing to make the image into an image as if it was pointed straight down?
First part of this task is probably to go somewhere high up and take pictures at various angles, while recording accelerometer data with your phone (there are apps that do this). Then, go into the software with your data and images and see if you can make the non-orthogonal images into orthogonal ones. Maybe put two targets on the ground, one directly below the camera and another somewhere further away to prove that your corrected image is as good as the orthogonal one.
It's also possible skew correction is not practical, which would still be a good thing to find out.