A drone survey of Canna and Sanday Islands collected 420 million data points, creating what may be the most detailed 3-D map of islands yet
The Small Isles, a gorgeous archipelago in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides, are protected as part of a National Scenic Area. But it turns out the sparsely populated islands are also now a high-tech landmark. The islands of Canna and Sanday, which are only separated by a tidal channel, are now the most minutely mapped islands in the world reports the BBC, and the imaging has unlocked thousands of years of archaeology.
Last November, the conservation charity National Trust for Scotland, which administers the islands, hired the Glasgow-based mapping firm GeoGeo to conduct a detailed drone survey of the islands to precisely locate archaeological features. Over the course of five days, a state-of-the-art fixed wing drone flew a total of about 250 miles, collecting 4,000 ultra-high-resolution images and 420 million data points. The team then used a proprietary super computer to analyze the data, creating an incredibly detailed 3-D map of the connected islands. “This not only shows detailed topography and vegetation at a game-changing three centimeters [1.18 inch] resolution but, with over 420 million data points, is currently the world’s largest complete island dataset captured by drone,” Paul Georgie, founder and lead geospatial technologist for GeoGeo says in a press release.
The maps are already revealing the past history of the island, showing previously unseen remnants of “rig and furrow” agriculture dating back to the Bronze Age. The data reveals that at its peak in the 1800s, agriculture on the island could have supported up to 400 people.
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