This tutorial demonstrates how to use the AirGen simulation environment to control a drone, capture infrared (thermal) images, and highlight fire objects for thermal analysis. You will learn how to:

  • Initialize and control a simulated drone
  • Capture and display infrared images
  • Enhance fire object visibility in thermal imagery

Notebook for this example can be found: Here

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Initialize the Drone

First, import the necessary module and create an AirGen drone instance.

from grid.robot.aerial.airgen_drone import AirGenDrone 

# Create a drone object
airgen_drone_0 = AirGenDrone()

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Take Off and Position the Drone

Command the drone to take off, ascend to a height of 25 units, and rotate to face west (yaw -90 degrees).

# Take off and move to a specific altitude and orientation
airgen_drone_0.client.takeoffAsync().join()
airgen_drone_0.client.moveToZAsync(-25, 2).join()
airgen_drone_0.client.rotateToYawAsync(-90).join()

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Capture and Display an Infrared Image

Capture an infrared (thermal) image from the drone’s front-center camera and display it using the rerun visualization library.

# Import required libraries
import airgen
import rerun as rr

# Capture an infrared image
ir_image, camera_pose = airgen_drone_0.client.getImages("front_center", 
                                      [airgen.ImageType.Infrared])[^0]

# Display the infrared image
rr.log("infrared", rr.Image(ir_image))

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Highlight Fire Objects in the Scene

To make fire objects stand out in the infrared image, set their segmentation ID to the highest intensity value.

# List all objects in the scene whose names start with "Fire"
fire_obj_refs = airgen_drone_0.client.simListSceneObjects("Fire.*")
print(fire_obj_refs)

# Select the first fire object
fire_obj = fire_obj_refs[^0]

# Set the fire object's segmentation ID to 255 (max intensity)
airgen_drone_0.client.simSetSegmentationObjectID(fire_obj, 255, True)

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Recapture and Display the Enhanced Infrared Image

Capture another infrared image after enhancing the fire object’s intensity, and display the result.

# Capture the updated infrared image
ir_image, camera_pose = airgen_drone_0.client.getImages("front_center",
                                       [airgen.ImageType.Infrared])[^0]

# Display the enhanced infrared image
rr.log("infrared_new", rr.Image(ir_image))