Students will learn how to use drone imagery collections and create maps and layers for integration into a geographic information system (GIS).

Drone image maps are increasingly valued by scientists for documenting and analyzing natural landscapes and urban environments. Drone imagery can support environmental analysis, monitoring of forests and wetlands, assessments of agricultural productivity, and mapping the changes in rivers and shorelines. Other drone collections can generate 3D immersive models of urban settings and depict changes in infrastructure.

This course teaches methods of computer analysis to manage and control hundreds (even thousands) of drone photographs for creating accurate and detailed maps and GIS layers. The drone imagery layers can be combined to create innovative maps and interactive story maps, using the GIS software provided to students by Esri, Inc. Each week students will create maps and 3D models of the landscape using a fully hands-on computer-learning experience.

Evergreen faculty will teach the planning methods for conducting drone flight missions, and cover the integration of ground control points for maximizing spatial accuracy and ensuring the quality of the resulting map layers. Students will use Evergreen's multispectral drone to conduct spectral analysis for assessing crop health and forest practice, and characterizing vegetation properties in terrestrial and marine settings. New in 2026: Thermal imaging from a drone will be added into the curriculum.  

Esri software licenses are provided (at no cost) for conducting the image processing workflows. The course is taught in Evergreen's scientific computing lab.

Students do not need to have their own drone to take this course. This course is designed to be compatible with the concurrent course "Learn to Fly Drones". 

Prerequisite knowledge of introductory GIS skills is valuable, such as provided by any introductory GIS course taught at Evergreen, or equivalent coursework or experience from another institution. Please inquire with Faculty about prerequisite skills if needed.  

Graduate students enrolled in this course will be required to design and execute an independent learning project on their own research topic.

CLASS SCHEDULE: Saturday mornings 9am to 1pm.