When more than minor damage occurs in a traffic accident, the collection of evidence becomes highly significant. The consequences can include hours-long road closures or personnel on-site working under difficult and potentially dangerous conditions as traffic is diverted around the accident scene. Using drones and appropriate software can significantly speed up and make the process safer. At least, that's the promise of SkyeBrowse.

It is not uncommon for personal experiences to lead to a successful business idea. Such was the case with Bobby Ouyang, founder and CEO of the American company SkyeBrowse. As a scientist at Rutgers University in the small town of New Brunswick in New Jersey, he had been working for some time on how to significantly simplify the creation of 3D models.

His academic work focused on understanding how to generate accurate 3D environment representations from video data. The videogrammetry software, which remains the foundation of SkyeBrowse’s technology today, was essentially developed in 2016. However, at that time, he was not yet sure what specific need this could address in order to create a business model.

Traffic accident

But this was to change in a fateful moment in 2017. After he was involved in a motorcycle accident, Bobby Ouyang was admitted to a hospital with a serious foot injury. When he later asked a friend to pick up his motorcycle from the accident scene, they were still carefully collecting data to reconstruct the events. When he heard this, Bobby Ouyang found a specific application for his technology. And the story of SkyeBrowse gained momentum.

Since then, the company has enhanced how security authorities and rescue…