ASPRS UAV Conference in Reno
Conrad and I just got back from our first conference since we started with Cardno in July. This one was in Reno and was sponsored by the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) which I have been a member of for several years and through which I got my Professional certifications a year ago. Being newcomers to the UAV commercial industry it was really great to hear all the talks and see the live UAS flying demonstration. Although I really enjoyed the both the conference and hanging out with my buddy Conrad, the city of Reno itself had clearly taken a drastic downturn since I visited Matt there in 2005. Read on....
After packing up all my gear for the upcoming Enchantments trip Conrad and I flew out early on Tuesday morning to Reno. We grabbed a super interesting cab ride (no Uber) to the Eldorado Hotel and Casino in the middle of the city where the Conference was also being held. The cab driver was a cowboy-hat wearing, alien conspiracist, Obama-hater who was quite the jokester with us! We egged him on a bit and the 20 minute drive from the airport to downtown turned out to be pretty entertaining.
We dropped our bags at the front desk as we were too early to check into our rooms and decided to go for a walk around downtown where there was a motorcycle convention going on. I picked up a cell phone charger cable I had forgotten and we got to see some cool bikes and even a guy selling photos with his live owl. Oh Reno... So interesting. It was hot as hell so we didn't stay out in the sun long, deciding instead to check out some of the games in the Casino, pick up some beer and drinks and eventually headed back to our rooms. That night we grabbed dinner at the Mustard Seed Restaurant which was completely empty as it was midweek and the restaurant was in the process of moving to a new location anyway. Later that night we hung out a bit and checked out the casino a bit but I didn't stay out too late, although I think Conrad may have wandered down to the blackjack table late night...
On Monday we attended a sUAS workshop before the official conference started on Tuesday. There were about 50 people in the room and we hit it off with a nice gentleman from Continental Mapping located in the midwest. The workshop was led by Lewis Graham from GeoCue and Qassim Abdullah from Woolpert. Both men are leaders in their fields and highly respected so it was wonderful to officially dive into the world of sUAS and UAV acquired data processing with them. One of the biggest topics in contention was photogrammetry sofware that uses sift algorithms to find matching tie point pixels between imagery and create ground models through triangulation from those matching pairs. This can lead to using less ground control as usual and there were definitely some "traditional" photogrammetrists in attendance that thought this wasn't the best way to process the data. It was interesting to hear both sides.
During lunch Conrad and I also were able to meet a lot more conference attendees and as soon as we told them where we worked a few of them said... "hold on... are you part of that group exodus from Quantum?". To avoid too much talk we simply said, "yes, after the merger we all began to look for other opportunities and through a mutual 3rd party acquaintance was introduced to Cardno". Basically, we just told them the truth without getting too much into why we absolutely hated working at Quantum. Without any urging they all offered up their horror-story experiences with Quantum and several said their respective companies would no longer work with QSI. Frankly, it was shocking to Conrad and I the animosity all these people had towards our former company and non of it was prompted by us. We were certainly happy to be at this conference working for a new company hearing all of this. And not surprisingly, we weren't the only ex-QSI employees at the table... We kept it professional though, and chose not to disparage QSI ourselves... especially not in the middle of a lawsuit by them against us...
That night I convinced Conrad to join me at the El Dorado buffet for dinner assuming it would be amazing. I was wrong.... That night we decided to hit up the Casino. Our game of choice was a fun slots game based around the movie "The Hangover". It didn't eat much cash at a time and the movie clips and sounds from the machine made it fun as we lost money... Well I didn't... I actually won over $100 and ended up leaving the conference/Reno $20 up! ha! Conrad wasn't so lucky...
The next morning was a bit rough for us as we went to the conference center for the keynote presentations and to check out all the various software and hardware vendors. I won't go into everything we heard but it is safe to say that drones (UAVs) are soon going to be the biggest thing in technology since the advent of the internet. It's not going to be "The Jetson's" anytime soon as there are too many strict FAA regulations to adhere to for commercial uses of them but the applications of the platforms for everything from delivery, to spraying farm crops, is astounding and I'm happy to be part of a group working for a big company that recognizes them as the future.
There was an awkward meet and greet in the Casino that evening for the conference attendees which was a bit awkward for Conrad and I. We are both young and this was our first conference and it seemed like everyone there somehow knew one another in the industry and had their little circle chats with drinks that would have been weird for us to break into. The guy from Continental Mapping did chat us up a bit which was very nice of him. And I can't go any further in this public post to say who but that evening we had a wonderful dinner paid for us by a highly unlikely friend from my past and the irony of it was amazing ;). After a long walk downtown to check out the absolutely dead Reno nightlife scene we again hit up the Casino that night and although we had plans to take it easy we also had a lot of beverages to finish off before checking out the next morning from our rooms... oh boy...
On Wednesday we headed out to a grass seed farm outside of Reno via a few buses. I set on the bus next to the President of ASPRS and chatted him up a little bit but I think he was too busy with emails to really have a thoughtful conversation with me. Before we got off the bus there were strict instructions for us all to sign waivers because of the risk of falling robots from the sky injuring us! I thought it a little silly but have later learned the importance and need for strict safety procedures with any UAS. Several companies were there to show off their platforms and at the end we were told we would be given the various data sets if we agreed to write a paper on how we used the data. By the time the last company was wrapping up the sun was taking its toll and we were pretty hot and ready to get back on the buses.
Once back at the El Dorado we grabbed our bags from the front desk and got a taxi to the airport, skipping the closing remarks of the conference to ensure we made our flight home. We grabbed some dinner at the airport to try to settle our stomachs from the previous night and had a pretty uneventful flight home. On any other day I would have gone to sleep but instead I was mentally preparing myself for a 5-6 hour drive into northern Washington as soon as I got picked up from the airport by Emily.... It was a great conference! I learned a lot about the evolving UAS/UAV industry (we shouldn't call them drones.. that name should be reserved for the military ones), as well as met some really great contacts in the industry.
Conrad and I just got back from our first conference since we started with Cardno in July. This one was in Reno and was sponsored by the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) which I have been a member of for several years and through which I got my Professional certifications a year ago. Being newcomers to the UAV commercial industry it was really great to hear all the talks and see the live UAS flying demonstration. Although I really enjoyed the both the conference and hanging out with my buddy Conrad, the city of Reno itself had clearly taken a drastic downturn since I visited Matt there in 2005. Read on....
After packing up all my gear for the upcoming Enchantments trip Conrad and I flew out early on Tuesday morning to Reno. We grabbed a super interesting cab ride (no Uber) to the Eldorado Hotel and Casino in the middle of the city where the Conference was also being held. The cab driver was a cowboy-hat wearing, alien conspiracist, Obama-hater who was quite the jokester with us! We egged him on a bit and the 20 minute drive from the airport to downtown turned out to be pretty entertaining.
We dropped our bags at the front desk as we were too early to check into our rooms and decided to go for a walk around downtown where there was a motorcycle convention going on. I picked up a cell phone charger cable I had forgotten and we got to see some cool bikes and even a guy selling photos with his live owl. Oh Reno... So interesting. It was hot as hell so we didn't stay out in the sun long, deciding instead to check out some of the games in the Casino, pick up some beer and drinks and eventually headed back to our rooms. That night we grabbed dinner at the Mustard Seed Restaurant which was completely empty as it was midweek and the restaurant was in the process of moving to a new location anyway. Later that night we hung out a bit and checked out the casino a bit but I didn't stay out too late, although I think Conrad may have wandered down to the blackjack table late night...
On Monday we attended a sUAS workshop before the official conference started on Tuesday. There were about 50 people in the room and we hit it off with a nice gentleman from Continental Mapping located in the midwest. The workshop was led by Lewis Graham from GeoCue and Qassim Abdullah from Woolpert. Both men are leaders in their fields and highly respected so it was wonderful to officially dive into the world of sUAS and UAV acquired data processing with them. One of the biggest topics in contention was photogrammetry sofware that uses sift algorithms to find matching tie point pixels between imagery and create ground models through triangulation from those matching pairs. This can lead to using less ground control as usual and there were definitely some "traditional" photogrammetrists in attendance that thought this wasn't the best way to process the data. It was interesting to hear both sides. 
During lunch Conrad and I also were able to meet a lot more conference attendees and as soon as we told them where we worked a few of them said... "hold on... are you part of that group exodus from Quantum?". To avoid too much talk we simply said, "yes, after the merger we all began to look for other opportunities and through a mutual 3rd party acquaintance was introduced to Cardno". Basically, we just told them the truth without getting too much into why we absolutely hated working at Quantum. Without any urging they all offered up their horror-story experiences with Quantum and several said their respective companies would no longer work with QSI. Frankly, it was shocking to Conrad and I the animosity all these people had towards our former company and non of it was prompted by us. We were certainly happy to be at this conference working for a new company hearing all of this. And not surprisingly, we weren't the only ex-QSI employees at the table... We kept it professional though, and chose not to disparage QSI ourselves... especially not in the middle of a lawsuit by them against us...
That night I convinced Conrad to join me at the El Dorado buffet for dinner assuming it would be amazing. I was wrong.... That night we decided to hit up the Casino. Our game of choice was a fun slots game based around the movie "The Hangover". It didn't eat much cash at a time and the movie clips and sounds from the machine made it fun as we lost money... Well I didn't... I actually won over $100 and ended up leaving the conference/Reno $20 up! ha! Conrad wasn't so lucky... 
The next morning was a bit rough for us as we went to the conference center for the keynote presentations and to check out all the various software and hardware vendors. I won't go into everything we heard but it is safe to say that drones (UAVs) are soon going to be the biggest thing in technology since the advent of the internet. It's not going to be "The Jetson's" anytime soon as there are too many strict FAA regulations to adhere to for commercial uses of them but the applications of the platforms for everything from delivery, to spraying farm crops, is astounding and I'm happy to be part of a group working for a big company that recognizes them as the future.
There was an awkward meet and greet in the Casino that evening for the conference attendees which was a bit awkward for Conrad and I. We are both young and this was our first conference and it seemed like everyone there somehow knew one another in the industry and had their little circle chats with drinks that would have been weird for us to break into. The guy from Continental Mapping did chat us up a bit which was very nice of him. And I can't go any further in this public post to say who but that evening we had a wonderful dinner paid for us by a highly unlikely friend from my past and the irony of it was amazing ;). After a long walk downtown to check out the absolutely dead Reno nightlife scene we again hit up the Casino that night and although we had plans to take it easy we also had a lot of beverages to finish off before checking out the next morning from our rooms... oh boy...
On Wednesday we headed out to a grass seed farm outside of Reno via a few buses. I set on the bus next to the President of ASPRS and chatted him up a little bit but I think he was too busy with emails to really have a thoughtful conversation with me. Before we got off the bus there were strict instructions for us all to sign waivers because of the risk of falling robots from the sky injuring us! I thought it a little silly but have later learned the importance and need for strict safety procedures with any UAS. Several companies were there to show off their platforms and at the end we were told we would be given the various data sets if we agreed to write a paper on how we used the data. By the time the last company was wrapping up the sun was taking its toll and we were pretty hot and ready to get back on the buses.
Once back at the El Dorado we grabbed our bags from the front desk and got a taxi to the airport, skipping the closing remarks of the conference to ensure we made our flight home. We grabbed some dinner at the airport to try to settle our stomachs from the previous night and had a pretty uneventful flight home. On any other day I would have gone to sleep but instead I was mentally preparing myself for a 5-6 hour drive into northern Washington as soon as I got picked up from the airport by Emily.... It was a great conference! I learned a lot about the evolving UAS/UAV industry (we shouldn't call them drones.. that name should be reserved for the military ones), as well as met some really great contacts in the industry.
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