STRUCTURE FROM MOTION (SFM) APPLICATIONS TO ALASKA REGION NPS NATURAL RESOURCES SCIENCE AND OUTREACH

Over the last few years the Alaska Regional Office has been developing SfM capabilities to support park science and outreach projects. The projects completed range widely in scale, from 3D models of fossils to high resolution digital elevation models (DEM) of park landscapes. SfM is a modern photogrammetry technique where overlapping photos are used to calculate matching points in 3D space. Initial platforms and projects were object based to bring the park collections to the public in a virtual museum (https://sketchfab.com/alaska_nps_geology). This year we developed an aerial based SfM platform in collaboration with colleagues in the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management, which has greatly reduced the learning curve. In Alaska, LiDAR acquisitions are very expensive for the remote Alaska National Parks, so SfM provides a cost-effective tool to generate DEMs and detailed color air-photos and near-infrared imagery of large portions of parks. Also, the ruggedness and remoteness of Alaska National Parks are barriers to access by most people, so 3D modeling of fossils and other artifacts of the parks provides virtual access to the rich natural resources of the parks. These SfM projects have resulted in high-quality products that have been used to educate the public about Alaska National Park resources and address management issues.

Three geologic examples of these models and their research and outreach applications will be presented: 1) Creating a “virtual museum” of fossils and artifacts from Katmai, Lake Clark, Bering Land Bridge, and Aniakchak; 2) Detecting landslides and glacier change in Kenai Fjords; 3) Building a detailed intertidal DEM of Katmai and Lake Clark coasts. The repeatability of these acquisitions to detect landscape changes is, and will be a powerful tool. Challenges and limitations of conducting SfM will be discussed.