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Infragram Point & Shoot

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The Infragram Point & Shoot is a handheld, battery powered mini camera (a modified Mobius Action Cam) for doing plant analysis. We modify these to replace the infrared-blocking filter with a red filter, effectively exchanging its blue light channel for infrared light.

This is based on a great deal of research by Public Lab contributors and was initially pioneered in our community by @nedhorning and @cfastie. See especially these two research notes.

Why

Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessing plant health, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. At Public Lab, we've developed a Do-It-Yourself way to take these kinds of photos, enabling us to monitor our environment through quantifiable data. Read more about the Infragram project here.

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Our technique uses a modified digital camera to capture near-infrared and red light in the same image, but in different color channels. We then post-process the image (see Infragram.org, below) to attempt to infer how much plants are photosynthesizing. This allows us to better understand and quantify how much of the available light plants are using to produce sugar via photosynthesis.

Basics

Before you begin, to take useful plant analysis photos, you'll have to modify your camera's white balance, so that vegetation looks "bluish" but there is not an overall red tinge to the images. You can achieve this with a custom config file, as described below.

Some cameras may require a firmware upgrade to v1.20. If you've gotten your Infragram Point & Shoot from Public Lab's Kits initiative (through Kickstarter or the Public Lab store), both the config file and the v1.20 firmware should be on the SD card provided (in addition to this documentation!). However, you'll still have to load up the white balance file as described in "Installing config file" below.

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Activities


Activities should include a materials list, costs and a step-by-step guide to construction with photos. Learn what makes a good activity here.


Questions

These are questions just for the Infragram Point & Shoot, also known as the Mobius Action Cam. For questions about infrared imaging or the Infragram project more broadly, see the Infragram page.

Title Author Updated Likes Comments
Need help to reduce the Blue in mobius point and shoot camera @Muneeswaran over 4 years ago 5
Use of image in thesis @petter_mansson1 almost 5 years ago 2
Question infragram kit @marfisistemidroni over 7 years ago 5
What is the ideal white balance for the Infragam Point and Shoot? @abdul over 7 years ago 1
Can anyone help me troubleshoot my NDVI imagery? @abdul over 7 years ago 6
How to process images using a mobius with an IR lens? @miguel_rosas over 7 years ago 1
Correct Config. File & Trobule shooting2 @will123 over 7 years ago 1
Infragram Point and Shoot Plant Cam @alexrfholland over 7 years ago 3
Question: Infragram point & shoot image @ino almost 8 years ago 2
Initial results and resolution of timelapse mode issue: PL Mobius Infragram Point and Shoot @patcoyle over 9 years ago 3

For any information, support, or troubleshooting not covered here, please look to this epic thread about the Mobius Action Cam at RCGroups.com which contains a great deal of information about using and modifying the camera.


Upgrades

Done something cool with your Mobius? Added to it or improved on it? Post your upgrade guides here:



Software

There is a variety of software available to process your images to calculate NDVI and better understand or compare plant health. See Infrared software for options.

To get started quickly, see our guide on Getting started with Infragram.org.


White balance

One step you need to take to set up this camera is to configure the white balance; otherwise, your images will be flooded with infrared and will look pinkish -- and the NDVI post-processing steps (see above) won't work.

To set the white balance on your Mobius, follow the steps in this activity:

https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/10-23-2017/change-the-white-balance-or-other-configuration-on-a-mobius-camera

Images should look roughly like the "GOOD" example below -- vegetation should appear generally pastel blue. An incorrectly white-balanced image such as the "BAD" example below may appear with an overall reddish tint. This means the camera probably has not accepted your config file, possibly due to misformatting or incorrect uploading.

good-bad.png


Resources

Kit insert: infragram-ps-insert.pdf

timelapse.svg

modes.svg

An official manual for the Mobius Action Cam can also be found here: https://www.mobius-actioncam.com/downloads-info//