Getting displacement while beam bends from 2D camera.

[stapol]

Hi guys, 

I would appreciate your help on this issue I am facing for days now. 

I tried to capture vertical displacement of a beam from the camera of a drone (Phantom 4 Pro). There is some movement in the video footage. For this purpose, I used a block parallel to the beam to subtract the vertical movement of the stationary block (which measures the drone movement) from the vertical movement of the beam, without any success so far. Is there any way to capture the deformation of the beam using additional stationary points? See photo below, as well drone footage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnHHyH2-f2w

[BruceAmmons]

Is there a reason you are using a flying drone to do the video?  Why not use a stationary camera that can be calibrated?  Why do you need to measure the displacement if you have a sensor that is doing that already?

The problem with the drone is finding reference points, and that it appears to get closer and further away, which changes the scaling as well.

I just don't see why you don't mount a camera on a tripod and be done with it.

Bruce

[stapol]

I have used a camera mounted on a tripod and results match with the LVDT; however the project I am working on involve the use of drones, so i am trying to find a way to eliminate the movement and stabilise the video. 

[BruceAmmons]

I would use two fixed points that are easy to locate to use as landmarks.  They will give you position, rotation and scale.  From this you could measure one or more points on the beam accurately as long as the changes in distance from the target are not too large.

Bruce