---
language: en
license: cc-by-4.0
pretty_name: DCSkyCam Full-Scene Wide-Angle Dataset
tags:
  - image-classification
  - helicopter
  - aviation
  - computer-vision
  - wide-angle
task_categories:
  - image-classification
  - object-detection
size_categories:
  - 1K<n<10K
---

# DCSkyCam Full-Scene Wide-Angle Dataset

This dataset contains full-frame wide-angle images captured by the DCSkyCam — a Raspberry Pi-based webcam in Washington, DC. The images show the full camera field of view as captured by the HQ Camera module with a wide-angle lens.

## Dataset Description

The DCSkyCam system used a three-stage detection pipeline:
1. **Object Detection** (SSD MobileNet V3) identifies candidate objects in the sky
2. **Binary Classifier** determines if a candidate is a helicopter or not
3. **Multi-class Classifier** identifies the specific helicopter type

This dataset contains the full-scene context shots captured by the webcam for stage 1. 

### Image Format
- **Format:** JPEG
- **Resolutions:** 3960×2382; Some images might be 1920×1080
- **Total images:** 4,556

### Filename Convention
Class information is encoded in the filename prefix:
- Specific helicopter type (e.g., `uh1n-*`, `as350-*`, etc.)
- Unidentified / not-classified aircraft (i.e., `unknown-*`)
- Non-aircraft objects (i.e., `not_helicopter*`)

### Class Distribution
helicopter: 4,477
not_helicopter: 79

| heli_subtype | Count |
|-----------------|-------|
| UH1N | 1,614 |
| AS350 | 768 |
| MH65 | 559 |
| H60 | 373 |
| B412 | 351 |
| VH3D | 135 |
| S76 | 118 |
| VH92 | 95 |
| EC35 | 91 |
| AW139 | 35 |
| UH72 | 25 |
| EC45 | 18 |
| MD52 | 9 |
| B206 | 3 |
| AH6 | 2 |
| B429 | 2 |
| V22 | 1 |
| Unknown | 278 |

## Usage Notes

- These images represent the full camera frame and may be useful for object detection and other tasks.
  - Note that the object detection was performed prior to lens geometry correction, and the images in this dataset are post-geometry correction. As a result, some aircraft from the [helicopter-classification](https://huggingface.co/datasets/dcskycam/helicopter-classification) dataset might not be in the visible area of the images in this dataset.
- This dataset provides the full context for the cropped classification images in the [helicopter-classification](https://huggingface.co/datasets/dcskycam/helicopter-classification) dataset. The hashes in the filenames can be used to map the full-scene image and the cropped object image.
- The dataset excludes images used for data augmentation during model training.

## License

This dataset is licensed under the [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## Citation

```bibtex
@misc{dcskycam_dataset,
  title = {DCSkyCam Full-Scene Wide-Angle Dataset},
  author = {DCSkyCam contributors},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/dcskycam/full-scene},
  license = {CC-BY-4.0}
}
```

## Project Information

The DCSkyCam project was an AI-enabled sky monitoring system built on Raspberry Pi that automatically detected and identified helicopters using TensorFlow Lite models.