David Hogg

In the last month we have started to offer a brand new service which perfectly complements our other property-centric photography and filming services — fully interactive 3D Matterport virtual tours.

If you haven’t seen one of these tours before, be prepared to be astounded! Matterport tours are created by scanning every space inside a property with a special 3D camera which captures not only visual imagery but also depth data. This data is then compiled into a fully-navigable 3D model of the property in question which can be rotated in 360 degrees, and allows you to jump to any point in the property at the click of a mouse.

Last month we were commissioned to inspect over 2,700 square metres of roof structures at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester. This was one of our largest aerial inspection projects to date and involved a significant amount of planning as the hospital had to remain open whilst the work was being carried out. To complicate matters further, the hospital is directly opposite Winchester Prison — a very sensitive site with an understandable concern for drones flying anywhere near their land.

Thanks to our meticulous planning, the shoot was a complete success, with the entire roof structure being inspected from the air in under 3 hours. This saved our client, surveying firm AECOM considerable time and expense when compared to the only feasible alternative — cladding the entire building in scaffolding!

Our brand new Drone Aerial Filming showreel is long overdue … but it’s finally here!

This video incorporates some of the wide range of aerial footage we’ve shot with our drones over the past 3 years. From construction sites to campsites, business parks to universities, private gardens to lavish weddings, we’ve filmed it all in glorious high definition (and some of the latest footage is in 4K too).

So sit back, grab a coffee and immerse yourself in the incredible bird’s-eye perspectives that only our drones can provide.

We were recently commissioned to inspect the 1000 square metre roof of an industrial unit in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. The imagery was required to support a condition report which had been commissioned by the potential new owner of the unit, as they wanted to know the state of the building before handing over their money!

Our client was structural engineering firm Bond Davidson, and we worked closely with one of their structural engineers to make sure all areas of interest were captured in the survey — these were primarily the condition of the bolts fixing the roof panels in place, the general condition of the roof panels themselves, the condition of the gutters and the condition of the roof around any protrusions through the roof’s surface, eg. chimneys.

Last Autumn we were commissioned by national construction firm Willmott Dixon to produce a short film which had to convey the important role played by apprentices in ensuring the continued success of their business.

The film brought together footage from a number of different events including the ‘Class of 2017 Graduation Ceremony’ (for the latest group of apprentices who had successfully reached the end of the scheme) which took place at a large hotel in Greenwich, London, as well as numerous interviews with key members of staff which had been filmed at Willmott Dixon’s Cobham office in Surrey in the months leading up to the Graduation Ceremony.

An increasingly popular use of drone aerial photographs is to combine them with computer-generated models of proposed developments — buildings which don’t even exist but can be rendered so realistically that it becomes hard to tell where the aerial photograph stops and the computer-generated model starts. This type of imagery is especially helpful during the planning phase of new developments and for estate agents, allowing them to market as-yet-unfinished properties using highly realistic imagery of the completed projects.

We have many years of experience working with property developers and 3D Visualisation Studios to do just this, and computer simulation software has become so advanced that it’s almost impossible to tell where reality ends and the computer models start. Want to know more? Read on …

We were recently consulted about what it takes to start and run a successful drone aerial photography business by the money advice website ‘Money Magpie’. The following article was written by our Director, David Hogg, as a guide for someone who likes the idea of using drones to make money, but doesn’t know where to start, and it covers topics from equipment selection to business strategy, to our own experience of the explosion of demand (and supply) of drone-related services. There’s also some history about the formation of Horizon Imaging and how it all began back in 2007 when David built his first drone from scratch!

So grab a coffee, and enjoy the article!

This is just a quick note to wish all our followers, sharers, likers, commenters, networkers, collaborators and customers a very happy and restful Christmas, and a peaceful start to the New Year — not long to go now!

The Malls Shopping Centre in Basingstoke have been struggling for years with the inflated roof structure above their main courtyard developing mysterious holes, triggering the roof’s automated deflation alarms. After some investigation they discovered the culprit(s) — the local seagulls! For some reason they continuously peck at the clear outer membrane until they’ve punctured it … and then they abandon their ‘creation’ and start afresh elsewhere! Numerous attempts have been made to scare the birds away using automated bird deterrents, but so far none of them have proved effective. As such, a quicker and more cost-effective solution was required for locating and identifying the severity of the holes.

Earlier in the year we were presented with one of our most challenging projects to date — capturing a 300 megapixel architectural photograph from 5 metres above the Grand Staircase inside the UK Foreign and Commonwealth office! Never a company to turn down such a challenge, we eagerly accepted the project.

The ceiling above one side of the Grand Staircase was in need of renovation and the only way to achieve this was to completely scaffold the area from floor to ceiling. However, as the Grand Staircase is one of the most beautiful and photographed areas of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) — and one that is often used as a backdrop for photographs of official visits — the FCO understandably wanted to keep the unsightly scaffolding hidden as much as possible.