Using drones to make 3D animations

Drones are going to transform the film industry in a major way. Researchers at the ETH Zurich and the TU Delft showed a year ago that spectacular, technically very complex film scenes can be realised much easier by employing these mini aircraft. In a follow-up project, which was presented in December 2018 at the SIGGRAPH conference in Tokyo, they demonstrated that drones also have a great potential in animated films.

The new company Fixposition, a spin-off from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich (Switzerland), specialises in real-time navigation systems for self-driving cars, robots or (industrial) drones. Through the combination of satellite-based positioning, such as GPS, with computer vision technologies, the company knows how to achieve and unequalled degree of accuracy.

The drone and autonomous robot industry is rapidly growing. Kevin Sartori talks about Auterion’s mission to extend the reach of open-source technologies to meet enterprise-grade requirements of companies in the commercial drone space.

The University of Twente and UT startup Clear Flight Solutions have won the first round of DroneClash. Droneclash is, among others, organised by the Dutch National Police. Teams have to come up with anti-drone measures and have to defeat the drones of an opponent…

Drones are becoming more and more popular — and form an ever increasing risk to our privacy. At the moment, anyone who is 'armed' with a drone that is equipped with a video camera can make unauthorized recordings and view and record these via the so-called first person view (FPV) encrypted channel. Although countless methods have been proposed to detect the presence of drones, they all have the same shortcoming…

Airblock is the first modular drone, graphics-programmable and controllable by phone or tablet, on Android or iOS. Assembled from instantly interconnected magnetic parts, it transforms itself easily and quickly into a hovercraft or a car and much more, giving free rein to your imagination and your taste for experimentation. The drone also allows stunt flying. Airblock is the perfect solution for learning, practicing and construction of small drones and their programming.

Last week Facebook’s Aquila project took another step in its quest to provide internet access to the 5 billion of earth’s inhabitants who currently have no connectivity. The venture has however not been without its critics...

To incorporate drones in our lives in a good and safe way, we need anti-drone instruments. On 4 December the TU Delft Micro Air Vehicle Lab (MAVLab) will therefore host the first ever anti-drone competition DroneClash. During this competition participants use their own drone(s) to take down as many other drones as possible. They also need to avoid a whole series of anti-drone interventions. Teams who wish to take part in the competition can enter here.

Making selfies with your phone is all the rage, and people often use selfie sticks to take selfies from a certain distance away. With the AirSelfie you don’t need a selfie stick, because it is a mini drone with a built-in camera that can take pictures from any distance, as well as pictures of the surrounding area

Drones were something of a novelty when they first appeared in our skies but now with their increasing levels of sophistication they can represent a serious threat to our privacy and even to commercial airspace...