360° omni-directional observation technique for biodiversity monitoring

Abstract

Panoramic images have been used as a useful and inexpensive tool to provide “surround - imagery” that are widely used in areas such as surveillance and virtual tourism to provide animmersive experience to viewers. The 360° degree photo-monitoring uses an omni-directionalsingle image for records and monitoring purposes where users can view the complete 360°panoramic image. In this paper, we present a documented effort to utilise the 360° omni-directional observation technique that has been deployed over various sites in Malaysia. Thesesites includes high altitudes such as peaks of Mt. Ledang, Mt. Panti, Mt. Belumut, Mt. Kinabalu,underground caves in Lenggong, Wang Burma and Langkawi, horizontal monitoring in DenaiAlam, Bangi and temporal monitoring in Johor Botanical Gardens in Batu Pahat. During thedeployment, we tested various aspect of the technology such as field deployment, practicality,software availability, technical challenges and long and short term factors that would affectdeployment of this technology in biodiversity monitoring. The study showed that it provides aless expensive alternative with a higher resolution imagery compared to existing videomonitoring technology. Other advantages include smaller data storage, thus requiring minimalbandwidth when viewing online. The resolution of the generated images is only limited to theavailable hardware and the smallest setup cost are negligible as open source technology andimprovisation of existing photography equipment is sufficient to create a basic monitoring system. The images can generate ‘‘walk - throughs’’ that capture and annotate the rich detail of the forest flora, monitor changes over time, provide context and functions as a decision supportwhen deriving conclusions regarding the site.