Bart Sakwerda

BartSakwerda

Drone surveys and 3D capture, media production, machine learning and data, security. London and Cebu.

The route on ten maps: Katowice 1983 · London · Bangkok · Hong Kong · Cebu · Riyadh · London 2026

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01 · 1983 · Upper Silesia, Poland

Katowice

Born in Katowice in 1983. 45 The city is the centre of the Upper Silesian industrial region, which a later study sets beside Hegang in China.

The drone record returns here: the Jaworzno 3 power plant, Mysłowice, Katowice station, and the city centre at dusk in June 2026. 19

PolandRoute
Katowice city centre at dusk from the air: the KTW office towers and the Spodek roundabout, June 2026
Katowice at dusk from the air, KTW towers and the Spodek roundabout. 24 June 2026.

02 · 2002–2008 · United Kingdom

London

  • 2002–2007: mobile and web content for the Java ME and DoJa platforms. DoJa was NTT Docomo's Java profile for i-mode handsets in Japan. 12
  • 2005–2008: University of the Arts London, with modules in games design, C++, multiplayer games and 3D asset production. 1
  • 2008: the paper "Concept of the time adaptable GUI for the mobile phone users" in Mobile User Experience, cited five times. 3

Katowice to London: – km great-circle.

United KingdomRoute

03 · 2013–2016 · Thailand, Hong Kong, China

Asia

  • Bangkok: mobile development, research and design for mikomi; photo documentation for an engineering client in Thailand, last quarter of 2013. 2
  • Klaeng, Rayong Province: workplace fire-safety training at Image Furniture. 9
  • Wan Chai, Hong Kong: founded App Ops, a developer studio. 2
  • A comparison of two industrial cities, Katowice in Poland and Hegang in China (dashed line). 2
Thailand, Hong KongRouteComparison study
Gaussian splat of a riverside temple complex in Thailand
Gaussian splat of a riverside temple complex, Thailand. Published 9 January 2025.

04 · 8 November 2013 · Visayas, Philippines

Haiyan

Typhoon Haiyan, called Yolanda in the Philippines, crossed the central Visayas on 8 November 2013 and made six landfalls, from Guiuan in Eastern Samar to Busuanga in Palawan. 25

Bart joined the rehabilitation of Santa Fe on Bantayan Island: construction, media work and tourism promotion. 5 He documented the reconstruction 7 and designed an identity for the island covering disaster, livelihoods and tourism. 8 He lists the typhoon first among the events that led him to aerial surveying. 10

Track, approximateLandfalls: 1 Guiuan · 2 Tolosa · 3 Daanbantayan · 4 Bantayan Island · 5 Concepcion · 6 Busuanga

05 · 2014–2019 · Metro Cebu

Budots Media

Founded in Cebu in 2014, during the rehabilitation period. The studio started in Budlaan, moved to Banilad and in 2015 settled in Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City. 6

For the Department of Tourism Region 7 it produced FMA7 on Filipino martial arts, RIDE7 on motorsport and DIVE7 on scuba diving. 6 Its survey arm, Data Ops Philippines, became Aerial & Data Ops in 2019: photogrammetry, aerial scans and data processing. 511

Studio moves, 2014–2015
Mactan Channel and the Cebu City skyline under cumulus clouds, from the Punta Engano survey flight, April 2023
Mactan Channel and Cebu City from the Punta Engaño survey flight. 20 April 2023.
3D reconstruction of fire damage in barangay Pusok, Lapu-Lapu City
3D reconstruction of fire damage, barangay Pusok, Lapu-Lapu City, after the fire of 12 December 2023.

06 · 2016–2020 · London and Cebu

Two cities

From 2016 to 2020 Budots Media also kept offices in Hackney and on Camden High Street in London. 6 Work from those years:

  • 2016: machine learning to identify whale sharks in Cebu. 12
  • 2016: a map of the frequency of extra-judicial killings in the first months of the Philippine war on drugs. 13
  • 2017: a 360° VR music video for the vocalist Madeleine Wood. 14
  • 2018: a year between Cebu and London on chatbot development. 15

Cebu to London: – km great-circle.

Aerial of an outrigger canoe team paddling over whale sharks
Outrigger canoe team paddling over whale sharks, Cebu. Published 27 June 2023.

07 · 2023 · Saudi Arabia

Riyadh

  • Drone surveys, NeRF and photogrammetry captures in Riyadh and its wadis. 16
  • 18 March 2023: with Abdulrahman AlAzwari and Adel AlRumithah at the Saudi ChatGPT Hackathon, organised with Tuwaiq Academy, KACST and Vectara. The entry assessed candidates in technical interviews. 17
  • A volunteer day for the Saudi Green Initiative in a wadi near Riyadh. 19
  • Arabic is one of the studio's eight working languages. 18
Saudi ArabiaRoute
Bart Sakwerda in a shemagh and hi-vis vest in a wadi near Riyadh during a Saudi Green Initiative volunteer day, February 2023
Saudi Green Initiative volunteer day in a wadi near Riyadh. 25 February 2023.
Aerial of a wadi canyon with acacia trees and layered cliffs near Riyadh, March 2023
Wadi canyon with acacia trees near Riyadh, from the air. 10 March 2023.

08 · 2022–2026 · United Kingdom

London

  • Aerial Data Ops: more than 1,000 sites flown, including in Saudi Arabia, Thailand, the Philippines and Poland; CAA-licensed and UK-insured. 20
  • A gaussian-splat map of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon 21, and 3D models and maps of Burgess Park. 22
  • Since December 2025: security consultant at Hyatt in London. 23
  • 2026: a test of Claude managing a 1,000-drone show sequence in Blender. 24

Riyadh to London: – km great-circle.

3D map of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, with numbered courts
3D map of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, with numbered courts.
The Peninsula London at night from the air, Hyde Park Corner, June 2024
The Peninsula London at night, Hyde Park Corner. June 2024.

09 · 2014–2026 · Seven countries

Flight record

92 dated sites in seven countries, counted from the published captures, posts and drive catalogues: Philippines 33, United Kingdom 31, Saudi Arabia 9, Thailand 7, Malaysia 6, Poland 5, Singapore 1. 19

Each site, with its method, link and date, is listed on the UAS page.

Countries flownn Dated sites

Figures

The flight and capture record in numbers. Each figure names where it comes from; the owner's own counts are marked as such.

7

Countries flown: the Philippines, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Malaysia, Poland, Singapore.

UAS record, 29 Oct 2026 19
1,000+

Sites flown by Aerial Data Ops; CAA-licensed and UK-insured.

Drone services in London 20
3,000+ km

Flown with stabilised aircraft over 500+ hours, plus 100+ hours FPV.

Owner's count, operator résumé, Aug 2022 19
56,341

Source frames from the Philippines survey season, April to December 2023.

UAS record 19
143

3D models published on Sketchfab, captured with drones and on foot.

Sketchfab API, 29 Oct 2026 26
600 GB

Aerial 3DGS PLY files of London offered to the mapping community.

LinkedIn, 2025 27

Dated sites per country, 2014–2026

Sections

Each section of the site has the full record for one area of work.

Sources

  1. LinkedIn: Bart Sakwerda, profile summary and education. uk.linkedin.com/in/bartsakwerda
  2. Behance: Bart Sakwerda, work experience and project archive. behance.net/barts
  3. Google Scholar: Concept of the time adaptable GUI for the mobile phone users (2008). scholar.google.com
  4. Quora: Bart Sakwerda, profile. quora.com/profile/Bart-Sakwerda
  5. Wikipedia (Cebuano): Bart Sakwerda. ceb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Sakwerda
  6. Budots Media. bartsakwerda.com/budots-media/
  7. Behance: 2014 work during reconstruction after Typhoon Yolanda. behance.net/gallery/17219929
  8. Behance: Bantayan Island ID, disaster, livelihoods, tourism. behance.net/gallery/23882907
  9. Security and personal protection work. bartsakwerda.com/security-and-personal-protection-work/
  10. Medium: Events that contributed most to interest in aerial surveying (2024). medium.com/@BartSakwerda
  11. Facebook: Aerial & Data Ops. facebook.com/aerial.data.ops
  12. Medium: AppOps PH, machine learning in whale-shark identification. medium.com/@BartSakwerda
  13. LinkedIn: Mapping the frequency of extra-judicial killings (2016). linkedin.com/pulse
  14. Medium: Madeleine Wood, promoting an electronic music vocalist on YouTube (2017). medium.com/@BartSakwerda
  15. Medium: Year we spent between Cebu and London learning about chatbot development (2018). medium.com/@BartSakwerda
  16. My stay in Riyadh 2023, part 2: drone, NeRF and photogrammetry. bartsakwerda.com/2023/08/29/…
  17. GitHub: azwri/saudichatgpt, Saudi ChatGPT Hackathon (2023). github.com/azwri/saudichatgpt
  18. My projects in Saudi Arabia (2025). bartsakwerda.com/2025/05/12/…
  19. UAS flight record: countries, 92 dated sites, distance and its method, field photographs (29 Oct 2026). bartsakwerda.com/uas/
  20. Drone services in London, UK. bartsakwerda.com/drone-services-in-london-uk/
  21. 3D map of Wimbledon, All England Lawn Tennis Club (2025). bartsakwerda.com/2025/06/24/…
  22. UK London Burgess Park 3D models and maps (2025). bartsakwerda.com/2025/05/12/…
  23. LinkedIn: Bart Sakwerda, security and drones profile. linkedin.com/in/bart-sakwerda-sec-fire-drones
  24. LinkedIn: Blender and Claude test, 1,000-drone show sequence (2026). linkedin.com/posts
  25. Wikipedia: Typhoon Haiyan, landfalls of 8 November 2013. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan
  26. Sketchfab: bart.sakwerda, 3D models. sketchfab.com/bart.sakwerda
  27. LinkedIn: comment offering aerial 3DGS PLY files of London. linkedin.com/posts
  28. Map data: Natural Earth (public domain), 1:110m, 1:50m and 1:10m, via world-atlas 2. Web Mercator. Typhoon track drawn through the landfall towns; positions approximate. naturalearthdata.com
  29. Coastlines of Cebu, Mactan and Olango Island on the Metro Cebu map: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. openstreetmap.org/copyright