Innovation doesn't necessarily have to be High Tech: innovation is also combining multiple tools together to explore possibilities for which individual appliances have not been explicitly or specially designed. Who would have thought, for example, that, with a modest cost, by putting a GoPro5 on a stabilizer and a 6-metre telescopic rod, it would have been possible to obtain an instrument for photogrammetry, a technique used to reconstruct a three-dimensional scene starting from a series of photographs.
In archaeology, for example, access to three-dimensional data is a particularly important contribution to measuring, and therefore understanding, how a site develops in space. From three-dimensional modeling it is in fact possible to extract the data previously collected from archaeological investigations in plan view.
Photos are taken using good quality cameras so you have control over settings for speed, aperture, color balance, and so on. As for the distal views that cover large spaces (for example monuments, Roman roads, arches, ...) we use a telescopic pole that mounts a GoPro5 type Action Cam with built-in GPS at its end for positioning the photos. The pole can reach 8 meters in height, thus simulating a flight with a drone. The GoPro is in turn controlled by a Gimble stabilizer which acts as a 3-axis stabilizer. Movements and vibrations due to walking during the completion of the survey are compensated and canceled by the stabilizer. This helps produce sharp, chromatically balanced photos.
