Researchers in the MaRRS lab have created MorphoMetriX, a software program that designed to help people measure whales accurately and efficiently from drone imagery. The software was released via a recently published paper that describes the software and how it is used (see Torres and Bierlich, 2020). MorphoMetriX was originally designed for the purpose of obtaining morphometric measurements of large whales imaged via UAS, but can be applied to other animals (e.g., pinnipeds, alligators, manatees) and used with nadir imagery (i.e., images collected by looking straight down at a target) collected via other platforms.

WhaleScale is a project sponsored by the Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab, a subset of the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment. It aspires to connect researchers with accessible tools to humanely and safely measure whales from drone images, right on their own computer using a web browser. WhaleScale uses software inspired by MorphimetriX, an image processing program developed by marine megafauna researchers KC Bierlich and Walter Torres. Like ImageJ and other UAS photogrammetry tools WhaleScale gives you the ability to draw vectors, curves, and points to measure whales.