To get the perfect shot, Curt Westergard and Ryan Shuler rely on a camera attached to a giant balloon hundreds of feet in the air.

The pair are behind the aerial photography company Digital Design & Imaging Service, which uses 3D printing services to help design and build camera mounts for its imaging business.

Company founder Curt Westergard attaches high-quality cameras to an SUV-sized balloon to take photos from hundreds of feet above the ground. His company, located in Northern Virginia, has taken aerial images of a presidential inauguration, rallies led by both Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart, and, most recently, the Women’s March.

Shuler enjoys projects in which he can analyze images and data.

“Those involve working mostly with engineering firms–building 3D models and using the balloon’s capabilities to create reference points and gather data from the air,” Shuler said. “We take all of that and basically create a presentation for the engineering firm to show what the visual impact of a structure will be.”

For instance, if a firm wants to build a skyscraper, Digital Design & Imaging Service can determine the view each floor will have so the firm can price the building’s units accordingly.

“Where do you get the views of the Hudson or Potomac rivers? When do you see specific monuments? Those are the kinds of things we can answer,” Shuler said.

Because the company’s services are so diverse, Westergard and Shuler have had to devise several custom ways to mount various cameras to the balloons.

That hadn’t always been easy or inexpensive, so when Westergard  mentored a local high school robotics team and helped it use 3D printing, he began thinking of his own company’s needs.

“As a mentor for them we saw they were using 3D printing, and they began helping us with printing some designs,” he said.

While those early results were promising, the desktop 3D printers didn’t always produce camera mounts that met the company’s standards.

“In the middle of a print, the object would shift by two millimeters, and it was a fatal flaw,” Westergard said.

He began using the services of Xometry, which prints parts on demand. The Xometry parts were much more precise than the parts his company had been printing on its own, Westgard said.

The company also offers quick quotes, which was another benefit.

“I could see immediately that a particular design cost $500, and if we tweaked it just a little, it could cost only $400,” Westgard added.

Thanks to its diverse services, media outlets began to ask the company to document newsworthy events. To develop a methodology for estimating crowd sizes, Shuler and Westgard began collaborating with academics like Steve Doig, a journalism professor at Arizona State University.

“We’ve done double blind studies that take our counting and his counting and figure out where we need to improve and what we’re doing well and get a good answer to the size of a crowd for a particular event,” Shuler said.

Crowd size matters because it is so widely reported and becomes a political tool,” he added. “And I feel like if we can position ourselves as an unbiased and accurate means of calculating a crowd’s size, then there’s a way of introducing some science into this highly volatile discussion.”

Though he’s been documenting crowds for nearly a decade now, Shuler still finds himself in awe when looking at high-resolution photos of huge crowds of people.

“I would say that there’s definitely a ‘wow’ factor involved in a lot of this,” he said.

 

 

 

 

Landscape architect Curt Westergard founded the company, located in Northern Virginia. He’s attached high-quality cameras to an SUV-sized balloon to take photos from hundreds of feet above the ground. His company has taken aerial images of a presidential inauguration, rallies led by both Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart, and, most recently, the Women’s March.

 

Shuler enjoys analyzing images and data.

 

“Those involve working mostly with engineering firms–building 3D models and using the balloon’s capabilities to create reference points and gather data from the air,” Shuler said. “We take all of that and basically create a presentation for the engineering firm to show what the visual impact of a structure will be.”

 

For instance, if a firm wants to build a skyscraper, Digital Design & Imaging Service can determine the type of view each floor will have so the firm can price the building’s units accordingly.

 

“When do you get the breaking views of the Hudson or Potomac rivers? When do you see specific monuments? Those are the kinds of things we can answer,” Shuler said.

Because the company’s services are so diverse, Westergard and Shuler have had to devise several custom ways to mount various cameras to the balloons.

This hadn’t always been easy or inexpensive, so when Westergard grew mentored a local high school robotics team and observed its use of 3D printing, he began thinking of his own company’s needs.

“As a mentor for them we saw they were using 3D printing, and they began helping us with printing some designs,” he said.

While those early results were promising, the desktop 3D printers didn’t always produce camera mounts that met the company’s standards.

“In the middle of a print, the object would shift by two millimeters, and it was a fatal flaw,” said Westergard.

He began using the services of Xometry, which prints parts on demand. Westergard said the Xometry parts were much more precise than the parts his company had been printing on its own.

The company offers quick quotes.

“I could see immediately that a particular design cost $500, and if we tweaked it just a little, it could cost only $400,” he said.

Various media outlets began to reach out and contract Digital Design & Imaging Service to document newsworthy events. To develop a methodology for estimating crowd sizes, it began collaborating with academics like Steve Doig, a journalism professor at Arizona State University.

“We’ve done double blind studies that take our counting and his counting and figure out where we need to improve and what we’re doing well and get a good answer to the size of a crowd for a particular event,” said Shuler.

Crowd size matters because it is so widely reported and becomes a political tool,” Shuler said. “And I feel like if we can position ourselves as an unbiased and accurate means of calculating a crowd’s size, then there’s a way of introducing some science into this highly volatile discussion.”

Though he’s been documenting crowds for nearly a decade now, Shuler still finds himself in awe when looking at high-resolution photos of huge crowds of people.

“I would say that there’s definitely a ‘wow’ factor involved in a lot of this,” he said.