Aerial imagery from UAS surveys of beaches at Fort Stevens State Park, OR, and Cape Disappointment State Park, WA, July 2021

This portion of the data release presents the raw aerial imagery collected during the uncrewed aerial system (UAS) survey conducted on the ocean beaches adjacent to the Columbia River Mouth at the Oregon-Washington border in July 2021. The imagery was acquired using a Department of Interior-owned 3DR Solo quadcopter fitted with a Ricoh GR II digital camera featuring a global shutter. The camera was mounted using a fixed mount on the bottom of the UAS and oriented in an approximately nadir orientation. The Fort Stevens State Park survey was conducted under Oregon Parks and Recreation Department Scientific Research Permit #235. Ten flights were conducted at Fort Stevens State Park on 22 July 2021, between 14:00 and 16:45 UTC (7:00 and 9:45 PDT).  A total of 3,002 aerial images from these flights are presented in this data release; the images from the third flight (F03) were not utilized for data processing and are not included in the data release. The Benson Beach survey at Cape Disappointment State Park was conducted under Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission Scientific Research Permit #170603. Thirteen flights were conducted at Benson Beach on 23 July 2021, between 14:30 and 16:40 UTC (7:30 and 9:40 PDT). A total of 3,648 aerial images from these flights are presented in this data release; the images from the second to the fifth flight (F02 through F05) and the seventh flight (F07) were not utilized for data processing and are not included in the data release. All flights were conducted at an approximate altitude of 120 meters above ground level resulting in a nominal ground-sample-distance (GSD) of 3.2 centimeters per pixel. Before each flight, the camera’s digital ISO, aperture, and shutter speed were adjusted for ambient light conditions. For all flights the camera was triggered at 1 Hz using a built-in intervalometer. After acquisition, the images were renamed to include flight number and acquisition time in the file name. The coordinates of the approximate image acquisition locations were added ('geotagged') to the image metadata (EXIF) using the telemetry log from the UAS onboard single-frequency autonomous GPS. The image EXIF were also updated to include additional information related to the acquisition. The data release includes a total of 6,650 JPG images. Images from takeoff and landing sequences were not used for processing and have been omitted from the data release. To facilitate bulk download, the images from each flight are provided in a zip file named with the flight number.  In addition to the provided zip files, the images are also available for browsing and individual download on the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program Imagery Data System at the following URL: https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/idsviewer/data_release/10.5066-P9BVTVAW.

Tags: aerial-and-satellite-photography, aerial-photography, altimetry, bathymetry-and-elevation, benson-beach, cape-disappointment, chmrp, clatsop-county, clatsop-spit, coastal-and-marine-hazards-and-resources-program, columbia-river, elevation, fort-stevens, geomorphology, geoscientificinformation, geospatial-datasets, image-mosaics, north-head, orthophotography, pacific-coastal-and-marine-science-center, pacific-county, pacific-ocean, pcmsc, photography, remote-sensing, state-of-oregon, state-of-washington, structure-from-motion, topographic-maps, topography, u-s-geological-survey, uas, unmanned-aerial-system, usgs, usgs-62e47195d34e749ac04cb78c
Organization: Department of the Interior