Sanborn drone gathers aerial imagery of Denver golf courses

By Golfdom Staff| November 9, 2015 0 Comments

sanborn_denver_evergreen_F The City of Denver has contracted with the Sanborn Map Company Inc. to collect high-resolution, full-motion video imagery of the city’s seven public golf courses and its Aqua Golf facility.

The city will use the images for marketing and to give golfers a bird’s-eye view of every hole with realistic fly-overs down each fairway from the tee box to the green. The city’s Overland Park Golf Course will be documented and is the oldest operating course west of the Mississippi River, according to a news release from Sanborn.

“We launched our new golf website earlier this year and now we look forward to adding the Sanborn imagery,” says Leslie Wright, Denver Golf director of marketing. “Our course locations range from densely populated urban areas to mountainous terrain with elevations above 7,000 feet. We also had a very tight window in which to perform the work. Considering these diverse challenges, Sanborn has approached the project with a high degree of professionalism and has been great to work with.”

Sanborn employs a commercial-grade unmanned aircraft system (UAS) from Denver-based Leptron Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The UAS is capable of producing unprecedented accuracy and resolution, including high-quality, engineering-grade digital terrain models exceeding 2-inch accuracy; multispectral frame imagery at sub-centimeter resolution; and crisp, vibration-free video. Earlier this year, the Federal Aviation Administration granted Sanborn a Section 333 Exemption, which permits the firm to offer commercial UAS services nationwide.

“Sanborn’s UAS technology is a great fit for a host of customers,” says Sanchit Agarwal, director of mapping operations. “Among them are police and fire departments, agricultural operations, utilities, oil and gas concerns, emergency response managers, local government, mine operators and the media.”