Considering purchasing a quad copter for the purpose of taking aerial photographs which could be stitched together and "rectified" to project control.
The images would be used as backdrops to civil engineering improvement projects, as well as to document construction progress. I could also see a use in preliminary disaster surveys/estimates.
What's the best combo (drone/camera) for this type of limited work?
The project sites would be either linear road projects, or several acre localized projects.
I would more than likely play around with learning 3D modeling, with the knowledge that more expensive hardware/software would eventually be necessary for that type of work. In other words, we just want to get our feet wet at this point in time.
DJI Phantom 4 pro paired with Pix4D or Agisoft Photoscan processing software and you're off to the races 🙂
[SARCASM]oh... sorry, I thought this was a thread about continuing Ed...... carry on.... [/SARCASM] 😉
FrozenNorth, post: 434304, member: 10219 wrote: DJI Phantom 4 pro paired with Pix4D or Agisoft Photoscan processing software and you're off to the races 🙂
Any camera suggestions?
Rankin_File, post: 434315, member: 101 wrote: [SARCASM]oh... sorry, I thought this was a thread about continuing Ed...... carry on.... [/SARCASM] 😉
School of Hard Knocks is in session every day.
Phantom 4 Pro has only one camera option., it is 20MB with 1" sensor and mechanical shutter. There bare minimum IMO, for 3d mapping.
Pretty steep learning curve to get an accurate 3d terrain model. Most soft create a 3d surface model. Terrain is ground only, surface is everything, including ground, trees, buildings, etc.
I'm in northern California this week. Drone will work well out here. Not much live vegetation around here.It was 48?øF when I left Syracuse, NY. 90's and 100's here in Cali. Too hot for me.
One thought. Drones and software use Lat/Lon/Ell so I suggest NOT using a localizing. Use a projection. But be certain to use good target, and at least 5-10 depending on project size and elevation change. I see a lot people using cloud services for orthos and volumes. Those free or cheap cloud services do allow use of Ground Control Points (GCP). Without GCP's there will several feet error in horizontal and vertical. Those don't use GCP's likely don't check their work, so they don't even know how wrong it is.
Look at the Site Scan, I have a 3DR Solo w a Gopro and a Autel XStar. The first is for mapping and the second for Photos. Both are great but way different.
The best bang for your buck drone is a Phantom 4 Pro. Partnered with a large screen tablet and you're ready to collect imagery.
As far as tablet apps, none are perfect. All of them have bugs or shortfalls. Experiment with MapsMadeEasy, Datufly, Pix4D Capture, DroneDeploy, etc. You'll find the one that works best for what you're trying to do. Right now we loved Datufly, but they eliminated controlling the drone speed, which makes it useless for large sites.
If you're looking for low cost and familiar with UNIX, OpenDroneMap offers a great solution. Depending on what software you currently utilize (ESRI, Civil 3D, etc) would allow us to offer suggestions. We utilize ESRI's Drone2Map because it is included with our ESRI package. It uses Pix4D's engine to process. Datumate is a solution we used for a couple years before obtaining a drone, so it made the most sense. Autodesk ReCap Pro is a seemless solution if you natually use Autodesk products.
Lastly, to do any of this for your company, you need to obtain your UAS pilot license, and register your drone. Also, you'll likely want to become familiar with the app, B4UFly or SkyVector.
Good luck! A lot of us have been here before.
~Raybies
Thanks guys, that is a lot of info to follow up on.
We currently use Autocad w/Carlson civil/survey and Esri Arcmap (with no extensions).
Anyone use carlson point clouns solution?
Pretty good deal on DJI Phantom 4 PRO with 3 batteries.
😎
