My initial “photo plan” on diving the F4D was to see if either wing was intact and, if so, get pictures of the shape of the wing since it is such a unique and iconic feature. Fortunately, one of the wings was intact enough to get those photos and then I started to move around and get additional pictures. These pictures were taken with the goal of a blog post and to document the wreck.
When you are at 200 feet deep, time moves both quick and slow. A few extra minutes can add up to exponentially to more decompression time but it also feels like sometimes time slows down.
I got the photos I wanted for documentation and the blog post but still had some time according to our pre-arranged dive plan of 5 minutes down and 20 minutes on the bottom.
Therefore, I started to think about taking enough pictures to build a 3D photogrammetry model and started to shoot away while moving slowly over the wreck.
I got close, but not quite enough, to build a model of the entire site. However, I did get enough to build a model of the wing and the area around that including the landing gear.
Some lessons from this:
- On deeper dives, it is hard to complete, in a single dive, the “conflicting” goals of taking photos for both a blog post (i.e., composing photos) and for a photogrammetry model
- Either plan on a very long dive with a lot of deco OR pick one photo plan or the other
- You have very limited time on deeper dives and you need to commit to one or the other goal
- Building a 3D model of what is essentially a 2D wreck site is hard
- Tyler had a good idea: for “debris field” type wreck sites where there is very little height (or relief as we call it), think about building a mosaic instead which would be a 2D map of the site
Here are some screen captures of the model I built along with a link to the Sketchfab model that people can view.
Screencaps
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