Advanced Look at Kite Aerial Imagery of Petite Tabac

Earlier this month, you may have read how we flew a kite over the lovely "deserted" island of Petite Tabac near the Tobago Cays in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The same island used for shooting the scene where Elizabeth burned Jack Sparrow's rum in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We flew a camera from the kite and took a bunch of photos from the sky. The aerial images have been given to Google who will later put them into Google Earth's imagery. Like what was done with our marina back in North Carolina back in November.

A friend of mine, Stewart Long of GonzoEarth , happens to specialize in processing imagery like this. He just yesterday finished taking the kite photos of Petite Tabac and stitching them together to capture the island from above. You can actually get an advanced look by viewing this file with Google Earth which overlays the kite photos. We've sent the imagery to Google, who will hopefully get it in Google Earth soon.

Oh, and here is a self-portrait taken as the kite was first going up (you can see the remote control panel in my gloved hands - the gloves are for winding the string on the big kite):

By the way, for a real technology treat, you can view the entire kite aerial shoot with a cool technology called Photosynth. This gives you a 3D perspective of the photos, but requires you to install some special software. Check it out here. Amazingly, all I had to do was install some software and upload the photos. Photosynth did the rest!