OSRT SAR Team Trains in “Aerial Image Interpretation”

Mansfield - Anyone can take video using a drone, but very few can effectively analyze that video to spot minute – often critical – details. These details, more often than not nearly invisible, can easily make the difference between “home movies” and successful drone use during a disaster.

Members of the Ohio Special Response Search and Rescue Team (OSRT) recently attended a comprehensive training seminar aimed at enhancing their abilities in aerial image interpretation. OSRT was the first SAR team in Ohio to possess a drone and to formally train/certify in its use through the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center.

This month's session, entitled “Interpreting aerial (specifically drone) imagery for search and rescue”, included digital stereoscopic/3 dimensional images as well as methods/practices for identifying shape, shadow, size, color, tone, patterns, & textures and differentiating “normal” from the distinctive and/or unexpected. Also covered were mensuration; techniques for utilizing size recognition of typical “known” features to establish approximate relative measurements/ratios; and differentiating man-made patterns and textures compared to natural – linear vs irregular features.

Want to know more? Join the Ohio Special Response SAR Team for the most comprehensive training of any volunteer SAR team in Ohio. We have seven teams distributed across the state with administrative HQ in Mansfield.