Aerial data built for the record
Small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) cover large or hard-to-reach scenes quickly: roadway corridors, hillsides, and wildland fire origin areas. JP Forensics flies under FAA Part 107 and processes the imagery with Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry to produce orthomosaics, digital surface models, and 3D mesh models of the scene.
One coordinate framework
Drone imagery is only as useful as its control. GNSS/RTK and surveyed targets establish a single coordinate framework, so UAS imagery, terrestrial laser scans, and ground photographs register to one measured record. Field acquisition comes first, then office registration and quality checks, so aerial products can be checked against the ground data.
Reconstructing events from imagery
Advanced photogrammetric techniques, including spatial resection, reverse camera projection, and orthophotography, allow scenes and events to be reconstructed from video and still imagery. Witness, surveillance, and first-responder imagery can be tied to the same framework as the drone survey, and video frames can be analyzed and synchronized against it.
Key deliverables
- sUAS / UAV data acquisition (FAA Part 107)
- Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry
- High-resolution orthomosaics and orthophotography
- Digital surface models and 3D mesh models
- Video frame analysis and synchronization
- Integration with terrestrial LiDAR point clouds
Matters supported
Drone surveys support wildland fire origin and cause, accident reconstruction, and large-scale incident documentation, where an aerial, measured view of the whole scene helps investigators, attorneys, and the trier of fact understand the setting.
Senior-level attention on every matter
The work is led by Joel Panock, LSIT, MSEE, Principal of JP Forensics. Joel has over 22 years of experience in mapping, surveying, LiDAR, UAV data capture, and 3D modeling, and 14+ years of forensic experience and litigation support. He holds an M.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from UC Irvine, is a California Land Surveyor-in-Training (LSIT #8695), and is an FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot. JP Forensics is deliberately small, so the person who reviews your matter is the person who does the work.
