Structure-from-motion: A cheap and easy way to get ultra-high resolution terrain models

Organisms exist in a complex three-dimensional environment, and their interactions with the fine-scale topography of the terrain may be as important to success as regional-scale variables such as climate. I will introduce a computer vision method called ‘structure from motion’ that can create terrain models with centimeter scale resolution using nothing other than point-and-shoot digital cameras. Structure-from-motion can be used to simultaneously record both the terrain and the organisms present in the environment, giving us the opportunity to study the interactions between occupancy the environment (both biotic and abiotic) with levels of detail impossible using traditional methods.