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3D object detection and localization based on only a monocular camera always faces its fundamental ill-posed issue to estimate 3D information. In combination with deep neural networks, recent researches have shown encouraging results to tackle this issue. However, most of them are only applied to street-view cameras based on several available small-size datasets and the 3D prediction accuracy of these methods is still low in comparison to traditional estimation methods using stereo-cameras. With the development of drone delivery applications in city spaces, it is also necessary to have a similar method to detect objects and estimate their 3D position from an aerial view. We proposed a novel Simulation to Reality approach to predict the object’s 3D position from an aerial view. An instance segmentation of an object is used as an intermediate representation not only to create a very large dataset for training by simulation but also to minimize the gap between simulation and reality. We designed a feed-forward neural network to predict the 3D position from instance segmentation and integrated it with a range-attention classification to improve accuracy, especially for 3D object detection at far distances. To evaluate our methods, we created two simulation datasets: one for cross-validation with other state-of-the-art methods and the other one for practical experiments on a real drone with a monocular camera. The experiment’s results demonstrate that we not only achieve better accuracy than the state-of-the-art methods using the monocular camera by testing on the same KITTI-3D dataset but also reach close to the accuracy of a stereo-based technique. Since our model is lightweight, we successfully deployed it on a companion computer on the real drone and the results of practical experiences are promising.

Geomedia reflect the infrastructural, environmental, and practical conditions under which they come into being. By reading traces of and as geomedia in different natural elements, the "thick mappings" of lines presented in this article render the properties of the crossed environments visible. From a historical-anthropological perspective, geomedia have taken on a double perspective in this process since the late 18th century, with the first aerial images. With regard to the movement in the air, on land, and on water, this double mediality concerns the paradox of representing an in situ perspective and simultaneously a line of becoming. Geomedia always exhibit a documentary and a procedural form. These two characteristics are chiasmically linked with each since the Industrial Revolution. Geomedia are practices that reflexively demonstrate how the paradox can be visualized, namely, that a mediated human body on the move is in a stable position, while the surroundings are fluid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, floating debris in the sea has damaged the environment and harmed wildlife. Systems for collecting floating marine debris in the open ocean by installing a huge net or using a vacuum device have been proposed. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no system for collecting marine debris in complex topographies, such as ports wherein marine debris tends to accumulate, and large vessels cannot enter. This study proposes a system to locate and collect floating marine debris by jointly using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV). The UAV discovers marine debris that cannot be observed by the UUV owing to its limited view, and the UUV is used for collection. However, for application of such a system, problems related to target detection, UUV navigation, and target collection must be solved. In the proposed system, the following components are developed: a graphical user interface to select the collection target, controller for the UUV to navigate to the target, and a collecting motion generator. We tested and evaluated the proposed cooperative system using a dynamic simulator and physical robots. As a result, we confirm that our system can achieve efficient debris collection in complex topographies, is easy to use, will reduced workload, and can be applied practically.

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs—commonly referred to as drones) in journalism has emerged only recently, and has grown significantly. This article explores what makes drone imagery as an instance of what scholars of visual culture call an aerial view so compelling for major news organizations as to warrant such attention and investment. To do this, the concept ‘visual aggregation’ is introduced to theorize the authority of drone imagery in conventional journalistic practice. Imagery produced through drone journalism is a visual analogy to statistical summary and, more recently, of what is referred to as data journalism. Just as these combine an aggregate of cases to produce an understanding of an overall trend, drone imagery aggregates space visually, its broad visual field revealing large-scale spatial patterns in ways analogous to the statistical capture/analysis of large bodies of data. The article then employs a cultural and historical approach to identify key points in the emergence of visual aggregation as authoritative truth. The aerial view as a claim to truth is manifest in a wide range of antecedent social formations, devices and practices prior to their amalgamation in what has today become drone journalism. This analysis aids understanding of how drone journalism is a response to the institutional crises of journalism today.

The threat of fire is pervasive, poses significant risks to the environment, and may include potential fatalities, property devastation, and socioeconomic disruption. Successfully mitigating these risks relies on the prompt identification of fires, a process in which soft computing methodologies play a pivotal role. Although, these fire detection methodologies neglected to explore the relationships among fire-indicative features, which are important to enable a model to learn more representative and robust features in remote sensing scenarios. In the context of small fire detection from aerial view using satellite imagery or unmanned arial vehicle (UAVs) presents challenges to capture rich spatial detail, hinder the model ability for accurate fire scene classification. Furthermore, it is significant to manage model complexity effectively to facilitate deployment on UAVs for fast and accurate responses in an emergency situation. To cope with these challenges, we propose an advanced model integrated a modified soft attention mechanism (MSAM) and a 3D convolution operation with a MobileNet architecture to overcome obstacles related to optimising features and controlling model complexity. The MSAM enabling the model to selectively emphasise essential features during the training process which acts as a selective filter. This adaptive attention mechanism enhances sensitivity and allowing the model to prioritise relevant patterns for accurate fire detection. Concurrently, the integration of a 3D convolutional operation extends the model spatial awareness, to capture intricate details across multiple scales, and particularly in small regions observed from aerial viewpoints. Benchmark evaluations of the proposed model over the FD, DFAN, and ADSF datasets reveal superior performance with enhanced accuracy (ACR) compared to existing methods. Our model surpassed the state-of-the-art models with an average ACR improvement of 0.54%, 2.64%, and 1.20% on the FD, ADSF, and DFAN datasets, respectively. Furthermore, the use of an explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) technique enhances the validation of the model visual emphasis on critical regions of the image, providing valuable insights into its decision-making process. • Enhanced MobileNetV3 backbone with MSAM & 3D convolution. • Superior performance on benchmark FD, ADSF, and DFAN datasets. • Validated with Grad-CAM XAI for interpretability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs--commonly referred to as drones) in journalism has emerged only recently, and has grown significantly. This article explores what makes drone imagery as an instance of what scholars of visual culture call an aerial view so compelling for major news organizations as to warrant such attention and investment. To do this, the concept 'visual aggregation' is introduced to theorize the authority of drone imagery in conventional journalistic practice. Imagery produced through drone journalism is a visual analogy to statistical summary and, more recently, of what is referred to as data journalism. Just as these combine an aggregate of cases to produce an understanding of an overall trend, drone imagery aggregates space visually, its broad visual field revealing large-scale spatial patterns in ways analogous to the statistical capture/analysis of large bodies of data. The article then employs a cultural and historical approach to identify key points in the emergence of visual aggregation as authoritative truth. The aerial view as a claim to truth is manifest in a wide range of antecedent social formations, devices and practices prior to their amalgamation in what has today become drone journalism. This analysis aids understanding of how drone journalism is a response to the institutional crises of journalism today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an overall view of the first cities of the world which are considered to be the origin of urbanization, as they are reflected in historical bird’s-eye views and maps, on one hand, and in aerial views, obtained using modern technologies such as aerial photogrammetry, on the other hand. Historical bird’s-eye views of ancient cities, having a more artistic style rather than a technical one and requiring thousands of hours to be created, have been replaced nowadays with aerial photography allowing realistic representations. The paper illustrates several bird’s-eye views and maps created between the 16th and 18th centuries by famous engravers in order to picture well-known cities, referring at the same time to modern digital techniques that are used today to map, visualise, analyse and manage remains of ancient cities. The use of new research methods in archaeology, such as aerial photogrammetry, high resolution satellite imagery, UAVs, GIS and GPS techniques combined with classical surface or sub-surface survey tools is being exemplified in the case of 5 cities, origin of urbanization, constituted in the first 4 millenniums BC.

This article argues that there is a relationship between aerial views and the representation of catastrophe prior to the arrival of military aerial photography in the aerodynamic era. First, the article briefly reviews utopian literature that, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fantasized about the possibility of flying and warned of the destructive potential that vision from the air holds. It emphasizes that the conquest of the sky that began with the aerostatic balloon was represented with a sombre vision of a globe-eye as a warning of the coming danger. It also describes a series of representations of destruction, accomplished or in process, in ancient documents that used the aerial view and anticipated the photographs from planes that recorded the devastation of the wars of the twentieth century. This article argues, in short, that visual dominion from above turns the aerial view into a privileged position from which to represent the destruction of architecture and cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Going up, in order to re-embrace the city one thought was lost: from visual perspective to urban projection, from abstraction to utopia, the vertical city stimulates a prolific imaginary twentieth century urbanism has made good use. This paper focuses on three key episodes of Paris and New York urban mutations, which shed a light on the parallelism between metropolitan growth and urban verticality. First, the inter-wars with the birth of the modern metropolis, then the 60's and 70's with the expansion of the megalopolis and, third, the 2000's with the advent of the global cities. Exploring the vertical city imaginary, as it has emerged through these periods, we look at the motives behind this specific form of urbanization - its persistence, its renewal, its stratification, and the reasons behind the conflicts nurturing its controversies. Structural narratives thus emerge: the projection to the future, the megastructure utopia, the iconic mirror. In Paris and New York, the vertical city is an alter ego that allows cities to exteriorize themselves as a scene, optimistic or not, for their future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an overall view of the first cities of the world which are considered to be the origin of urbanization, as they are reflected in historical bird's-eye views and maps, on one hand, and in aerial views, obtained using modern technologies such as aerial photogrammetry, on the other hand. Historical bird's-eye views of ancient cities, having a more artistic style rather than a technical one and requiring thousands of hours to be created, have been replaced nowadays with aerial photography allowing realistic representations. The paper illustrates several bird's-eye views and maps created between the 16th and 18th centuries by famous engravers in order to picture well-known cities, referring at the same time to modern digital techniques that are used today to map, visualise, analyse and manage remains of ancient cities. The use of new research methods in archaeology, such as aerial photogrammetry, high resolution satellite imagery, UAVs, GIS and GPS techniques combined with classical surface or sub-surface survey tools is being exemplified in the case of 5 cities, origin of urbanization, constituted in the first 4 millenniums BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Marikana massacre ruptured the South African sociopolitical horizon in August 2012. This analysis aims to expose or make visible the scopic regimes at work when interpreting the event. By referencing Judith Butler’s “frame theory” (2009) and Nicholas Mirzoeff’s “the right to look” (2011), the event is unpacked, among other things, as the volatile intersection of differing world views and technics of vision. Three scopic frames are used to interrogate the event: the first aims to unmask “oversights” during the event, whereas the remaining two deal more with inversions of sight which bear on “foresight” and “insight”. In terms of oversight, the first frame refers to the overseeing or invigilation of the event via instruments of visuality or vision machines (e.g. satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, and helicopters), promising complete transparency. The second oversight comes in the representations of the events as media spectacle, becoming part of a new mediated visibility. The final oversight refers to the miners as subalterns becoming visible in a system that renders them invisible from the start. The second cluster of the visual complex, namely the appeal to foresight, surfaces through the calling on aSangoma(traditional healer) formuti(traditional medicine) to render the miners invincible/invisible to the enemy. The third and final cluster refers to artists Ayanda Mabulu’sYakhal’inkomo—Black man’s cry(2013) and Mary Wafer’sMineexhibition (2012), aiming to provide some insight into the unrepresentability of the event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]