What is a White Paper

Evan Brueggemann

AT 419

            In the semester of Fall of 2019, I worked in a group creating a project involving unmanned aerial systems.  The project used the creation of 3D models with comparing development time between the alternatives. This semester our group is tasked with creating a white paper over the research collected from the previous semester.  We have an option however of creating a more traditional research in place of the white paper. This assignment’s purpose is for us to individually determine which type of paper we should write.  In this assignment I will cover what makes a white paper, differences between a white paper and peer-reviewed literature, and preparing three critiques of individual white papers.

            White papers are documents that are generally text heavy with the purpose of fully informing the reader of the certain topic.  These papers should make it easy for a reader to understand and interpret the ideas being presented.  Readers should be able to feel that they have received ample information in order to make their own informed conclusions.  According to instructionalsolutions.com, businesses write white papers for marketing and to record expertise with the audience being anyone outside of said business.

            With businesses trying to get their ideas across, it is important to understand why white papers are more attractive in the business world. Peer-reviewed articles are scientific papers that have been reviewed and accepted by other scientists.  Other scientists like peer-reviewed articles but outside of that it does not seem to be the case.  According to Sandra Porter from digitalworldbiology.com, businesses prefer white papers because of the low cost and ease with producing them.  For businesses, they do not want to take the time to revise their information which could mean a lower return on investment. The white paper on the other hand does not need to be peer-reviewed and can be widely distributed for a lower cost. This leads us to the pros and cons of white papers.

            White papers are not perfect and does have its drawbacks. One advantage is the time and money saved during production.  It was briefly discussed in the previous paragraph that businesses cannot take the time to have articles reviewed and revised.  Businesses often need an easy method of delivering their technical data in an easy to understand format that are not just formal reports.  Another great advantage is that all the content within a white paper is reusable. Other white papers may cite information from yours which can bring in more readers. Now to move on to the disadvantages of white papers. According to James Anderson from toprankblog.com, a large con of white papers is that once they are created they just cannot be left to sit.  One must continually make the effort to generate traffic to the white paper in order to have a greater return on investment.  Another notable disadvantage is that white papers can sometimes be boring and disinterest the reader.  To avoid this, one must include helpful data like graphs and different examples throughout to keep the reader intrigued.  

            I will now provide three critique of different white papers.  The first white paper relates to gas detection from underground coal fire by drone fly over.  In this paper, it has charts and graphs throughout to help explain the information and keep to the reader on track.  One noticeable difference from traditional writing is that this white paper is very straight to the point with no nonsense. The next white paper I reviewed covers the vertical profiles of lung deposited surface concentration of particulate matter measured via a drone.  This white paper is very similar to the previous one.  Both these papers have descriptive titles that are not trying to be kept concise.  This differs from the traditional approach of making a catchy title to pull the readers in. In more traditional literature, graphs and pictures do not often take up an entire page.  In this white paper it regularly uses large graphs that take up most of the page in order to show the proper details that are needed.  Finally, my last critique covers the white paper discusses range based algorithms for precise localization of terrestrial objects using a drone.  This paper was also similar to both previous papers mentioned.  It includes images that take up most the area leaving little white space.  This white paper is more text orientated which made it harder for me to understand the concepts as I was reading.

            In order for our group to continue moving forward in the production of our white paper, we still need to conduct further research.  We hope to be able to gather enough research that we can use to make a thorough white paper that can be published and be included on our resume for future opportunities.

Works Cited

https://www.instructionalsolutions.com/blog/how-to-write-white-paper

https://digitalworldbiology.com/archive/cultural-confusion-white-papers-vs-peer-review

https://www.toprankblog.com/2015/01/white-papers-pros-cons-examples-and-best-practices/

Betti Sorbelli, F., Das, S., Pinotti, C., & Silvestri, S. (2018). Range based algorithms for precise localization of terrestrial objects using a drone. Pervasive and Mobile Computing, 48, 20-42.

Dunnington, L., & Nakagawa, M. (2017). Fast and safe gas detection from underground coal fire by drone fly over. Environmental Pollution, 229, 139-145.

Kuuluvainen, H., Poikkimaki, M., Jarvinen, A., Kuula, J., Irjala, M., Dal Maso, M., . . . Ronkko, T. (2018). Vertical profiles of lung deposited surface area concentration of particulate matter measured with a drone in a street canyon. Environmental Pollution, 241, 96-105.

GIS Day Review

We started GIS day by putting up the display of our poster.  I was surprised that the UAS posters represented over half of the posters being presented that day.  The other posters were very interesting and had a large range of topics.  One that I found intriguing was on snow removal and how they sectioned them out.  Below you can see what our group's poster looked like on display.

The arrangement that the posters were set up in was very odd.  They seemed to be out of the way and presented as a second afterthought.  An alternative setup that could be better is placing the posters where you walk in and the seating area after the posters.  Setting up like this would help draw the guests to the information on the posters first before taking a seat.

Several speakers from different parts of the industry came and spoke about how GIS is used on a day-to-day basis within their respected fields. The keynote speaker, Carly Sakumura from Maxar Technologies, explained how their personally owned satellites are used for various fields and industries. She also explained the process of how the satellites collect pictures and clean them up to make them easily viewable.  Below is a photo taken during Carly Sakumura's keynote talk.

Other speakers, such as Zachary Brecheisen spoke about the quantifying arid-region agricultural development in Peru using Landsat. Zachary has been doing this research for a few years and has figured out some of the driest areas in the region focused on in Peru.

Another highlight speaker was Christina Hupy, who explained the value of open source GIS in higher education. Christina explained that open source GIS is useful to teach to students because students are then able to utilize free GIS software without having to buy licenses from Esri. This allows students to develop their skills on their own time and gives them another edge when competing for jobs in the industry. The image below is Christina Hupy discussing open source GIS.

Week of October 29th

With GIS Day coming up at Purdue University, a poster highlighting 3D modeling in Multipatch and Pix4D is being created to submit for the event. Last week, each team in the class showed their rough draft poster to be critiqued and improve. Below is each students suggestions and how the poster was revised based off said suggestions.

Key: 

• Suggested change to the poster
• Poster change made

Hupy:

• Rename Pix4D
• Changed Pix4D name to photogrammetry software
• Change arrow color
• Changed from a yellow arrow to a black box outlining the picture of background noise
• Explain photogrammetry initially and what kind of software
• Explained how photogrammetry software is used to generate structure from motion, multi-view-stereo 3D models

Jasper: 

• abstract center
• Abstract was placed in the top left 
• Move pros boxes down for more space 
• All caps on abstract. SATT logo messed up
• Fixed the abstract so it is no longer all capitalized and SATT logo is no longer distorted
• Adding space down the center of the page
• Centered the page up better for uniformity 
• Bottom line up is offset
• Bottom line is no longer offset

Sam:

• Black border around the poster
• Did not end up doing a black border around the poster
• Label model figures
• Did not end up labeling model figures as it is explained within the text next to each model

Alan:

• Box for round barn zoom up
• Added a black box around the round barn zoom up
• Make it flow better
• Lined up Multipatch and Pix4D so the poster flows better and is easier to understand

Luke Hull:

• Switch the whole poster
• Made the poster readable form left to right for better flow
• Better layout
• Improved the layout for better flow

Ryan:

• Better layout. Each one is a couple pixels off
• Improved the layout for better flow. Improved the designs on the poster so they line up evenly
• The gold bar at the bottom of the page
• Fixed the gold bar to line up evenly
• Remove text boxes or line them up better
• Ended up removing most text boxes for a cleaner look

Connor:

• Balance the poster
• Balanced the poster for a cleaner look and better flow
• Just have pros and cons of both
• Ended up splitting the pros and cons by which software is being talked about for easier understanding
• Center multipatch in the poster
• Ended up putting Multipatch at the top of the poster rather than centering it
• 
  Highlight the area zoomed in on for building
• 
  Put a black box around the zoomed up picture to make it easier to notice
• Question and overall title contradict each other
• Kept the title and question the same
• Abstract is dense
• Cut down the abstract to 250 words by removing any filler information and only included what is important to the research 

Tim:

• No text boxes
• Removed text boxes for a cleaner look
• Format top down
• Ended up formatting top down

Luke Mklar:

• Boxes don't need the borders
• Removed the text boxes for a cleaner look
• Photos in the center doesn't work
• Left the photos in the center and evened them out on each side

Jarrett:

• Messy and inconsistent
• Cleaned up the layout for a cleaner look and easier to understand
• Line up the text boxes better
• Removed text boxes for a cleaner look
• Use the Purdue official colors
• Purdue official colors were too dark, used a slightly lighter color
• Flip the top 2 so multipatch is on the right
• Multipatch is on the top while Pix4D is directly below.
• Arrow is cheap. Use inset lines instead
• Added black box highlighting the zoomed in photo instead of the arrow

Below is the final poster that will be submitted for GIS Day. Most suggestions were taken into consideration vastly improving the quality of the poster.

GIS Day Poster Rough Draft

Introduction:

We have prepared a thorough rough draft for the poster we are presenting on GIS Day.  The abstract was positioned in the top left corner so the viewer focuses there first.  Below the abstract, we detailed the pros and cons for each method of creating 3D models.  Then next to this we have created a table to illustrate the different times that each phase took to complete.  These phases include post-processing, processing, and data collection.  After this we included the 3D model results from the Multipatch and Pix4D.  Next to the models we made sure include brief descriptions of the software and how it was used. The features of the poster at the bottom are still in the process of being created and we have used placeholders for what it could look like.  This is one of the final deliverables we need to finish before making the final poster.

Advancements:

To ensure the best possible accuracy and quality from Pix4D, the model undergone post processing. Ground control points (GCP's) were added for accuracy and masking was done to reduce the clutter. masking was done to the 3D model to get rid of background noise.



Pix4D Model Before Post Processing


Reducing the background noise helped improve the overall quality of the model, however, it took an extra 28 minutes which is a crucial amount of time.


Pix4D Model After Post Processing



The office building in multipatch was also improved to better the overall quality. One continuously arising issues with multipatch is that it is glitchy. Shown in the picture below, the red "editing" color on the back side of the roof would not go away. Furthermore, it sometimes does not allow for the multipatch to be edited.




ArcGIS Pro Multi-Patch Model



Work Done this week:

Our team increased our level of understanding in CAD software, and the post-processing of 3D models and we recently found out that Multipatch may have post-processing that allows for features that cannot be added in ArcPro. There will be more to come on that as we figure out the CAD software, stay tuned.

Week of Oct 1, 2019

Introduction:

This week involved more advanced features in Multi-patch and the beginning of the creation of everything we will use for GIS Day at Purdue. We collected more data at the Purdue Beef  Unit, this data is non-rectangular so it will challenge the Multi-patch software and our team to see if creation of these models are still easier than the standard 3D modeling. For GIS day, where numerous industry professionals will come to Purdue to look at the work that researchers are putting in, we started creating a poster portraying what Multi-patch can do.


Adept Skills in Multi-patch:

At the Purdue Beef Unit, we focused on non-rectangular and buildings with convex roofs. This will allow us to work increasing our skills in Multi-patch creation and to analyze if these intermediate buildings are still done easier versus doing them in a basic 3D model in PIX4D

Convex Roofs in Multi-patch

The roof was very easy to separate and pull up the convex sections, but our one failure of the data collection was that we did not gather the dimensions yet, so the convex roof points were done on a freehand basis.

Convex Roofs in Pix4D

The pro of the creation of the Pix4D model is that the roof overhang on the sides of the building is shown in 3D versus just being an imported photo. The downside is that the noise on the model has messed up the sides and the roof, leaving it looking patchy at points.

The timing of the collection and the processing still points to Multi-patch being superior. Below is a breakdown of the timing.

GIS Day Poster Template:

The main things that we tried to focus on for this template creation were based off of how the human eye will normally interpret things. Western language speakers will naturally read left to right, then top to bottom. Using that information, we put our research question and abstract first, so immediately the main point would be read. Right under that we put our comparison of each of the software packages, this puts all vital information nearby. On the right of that section, Multi-patch and PIX4D analysis are listed. Again, since the human eye reads top to bottom, the Pros of Multi-patch will be seen first and interpreted as superior. Below that section are the section for importing and exporting from Multi-patch. This is listed as importing on the left and exporting on the right to flow easily with the reader. More work will take place as time goes on, but this is the start of presenting our data.

UAS Capstone Group Poster

Our class was assigned to create a poster to be placed in the hallway of the Purdue Niswonger Building. We were allowed to create the poster using any topic and focusing on any audience of our choosing. Once we decided that our audience would be parents, prospective students, and current students, we decided that the topic should show off why Unmanned Aerial Systems is an upcoming and relevant field. Because of this, we were able to use data collected from our capstone project with 3D modeling along with a focus on High Resolution Imagery, GIS Data, and Search and Rescue.

My Contribution
The day of the poster creation I was out sick.  In order to participate, I was in communication with Austin Sullins who was leading the creation process of the poster.  Through Austin, I was able to help with the layout and selection of graphics for our portion of the poster.  I highly encouraged the use of the Beef Unit Silo 3D model to show how the outcome looks for a rounded surface.

White Paper Introduction

3D modeling using UAS platforms is a relatively new field and little research has been done in best practice. Although research done by Stătescu and others have looked into software packages best suited for the job and which UAS platforms work the best, none have come to concrete conclusions. Several studies suggest that Pix4D is the best software to use when 3D modeling structures, however, this can be challenged. 3D modeling using ArcPro may be the most efficient and accurate way of 3D modeling. The question to look into is if ArcPro is an overall better software to use than Pix4D. This will be determined by how long it takes to capture the pictures in the field, how long it takes to process, and the overall end result. 

When comparing software it is important to note that each will have their own problems that need to be considered.  It was found in a study by Arefi and Alidoost, that all software will have errors but it was found that most software experience similar problems.  Software like Pix4D creates larger gaps between surfaces due to the angles that the images were captured in.  The processing time with Pix4D was found to be the most efficient of those compared.  Other software that were included in the study were 3DSurvey, Agisoft Photoscan, and SURE.  Each software processed 300 photographs to create seperate 3D models.  The longest amount of time to process the data was roughly 10 hours by 3DSurvey.  Pix4D was able to process the data with negligible errors in only half the time at 5 hours. 

With the limited amount of research that has been done there are very few ways to get an actuator 3D model of a building to overlay the images in multipatch. These processes take a long time even for someone who has been doing it for months. There is a need and a demand for simple, fast, and effective way to be able to create a CAD model within minutes to be able to work with for a 3D model. One single software has yet to be invented to do all of this so the combination of softwares such as, Scan-To-CAD, AutoCAD, ArcGIS Pro, ect. will need to be used in a synchronized system to accomplish the desired results.

While ArcPro allows for more advanced input, the software also allows for more advanced outputs. Once a multipatch has been created, you can export a multipatch as a COLLADA file. Once exported as a COLLADA file, it can be saved to allow easy building of a scene versus just one building. COLLADA also saves the GPS location of the object created, allowing for drag and drop easiness in creating a scene. In a research article written by Xu, H., Badawi, R., Fan, X., Ren, J., & Zhang, Z, they recommended using ArcScene to add in multiple COLLADA files. That article can be found here, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253409871_Research_for_3D_visualization_of_Digital_City_based_on_SketchUp_and_ArcGIS. COLLADA files also allow for greater detail to be saved in the file, so looking at the file through Microsoft’s Hollowlens or 3D printing would keep greater detail than the average OBJ file, allowing for more options for practicality.

09/24/2019 Story Board

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e801e9e86d444b2487fdbe872f80b9f5


The link above is an Esri Story Map showing the sequence of comparing Pix4D 3D modeling to ArcPro multipatch.  The story map explains the process undergone and what the next steps are in comparing Pix4D are ArcGIS Pro’s multipatch.