Scotland, post: 448837, member: 559 wrote: My only concern is the pilots license you need to get and registering with the FAA. I am sure it can be done... but another factor.
Not a very big deal. Easily done in less than a few weeks of evening study, even if you don't fly; less if you do. Registering a UAS is on line and takes minutes.
Jim in AZ, post: 448835, member: 249 wrote: After recently reading about an extremely experienced UAV operator receiving a prison sentence related to a crash I'm not overly interested...
He probably did what Larry's friend did ("let it take off and go inside the house and come out 10 minutes later"). FAA regulations do require maintaining visual contact with the UAS at all times. How that works in the real world is another discussion, but, just sayin'.
rfc, post: 448851, member: 8882 wrote: He probably did what Larry's friend did ("let it take off and go inside the house and come out 10 minutes later"). FAA regulations do require maintaining visual contact with the UAS at all times. How that works in the real world is another discussion, but, just sayin'.
The demo that I saw was probably not the most adherent demo. But it wasn't commercial either.
Okay he didn't really go back in the house except for a minute to send the start command. The point was that the craft flew a flight plan with flight lines, predetermined photo centers, predetermined altitude, and the photos were taken by coordinate not ground speed or time interval. And that flight plan was generated by menu and parameters, not cad drawn. And not joystick.
Commercial application has rules. Sites have unexpected things like power lines to beware of.
It's a market share decision. Cost benefit risk analysis. Regardless it'll become more common.
FrozenNorth, post: 448836, member: 10219 wrote: [SARCASM]Better put away your bicycle, too[/SARCASM]
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Bicyclist-sentenced-for-fatal-S-F-crash-4736312.php
I think that's a great idea! They certainly shouldn't be allowed on City streets. My vehicle was struck several years ago by a bicyclist traveling about 30 mph. Although she claimed she was uninjured I had to endure watching her face smash into my windshield. She hopped up and exclaimed "I don't have any brakes." She was a minor and had no insurance, so I sued her parents in small claims court for the repair cost ($1,200), only to be told by the judge that parents weren't responsible for damages caused by a minor unless their actions were malicious! While I was picking up my repaired vehicle the body shop told me that they had another vehicle they were repairing, a car hit by a bicycle in a parking lot. The bill for that one was $3,000. Several months later my boss was hit broadside by a bicyclist who ran a stop sign. His helmeted head entered my boss's truck and struck him in the head, splitting his forehead open and deploying the side airbags. repair bill? $10,000 - cyclist had no insurance (none do). Cyclist spent 16 days in the hospital. Sorry for the hijack, but bicyclist are incredibly dangerous things! BTW - there's no sarcasm here.
As a cyclist (even though I'm currently shaped like a potato), the mentality I have when riding is that every driver is going to try and knock you off. Some even actively pursue you to have a crack. And that extends to the general public as well. But back to the OP, certainly around here, I'd say putting up a drone would attract people to try and knock it out.
Jim in AZ, post: 448835, member: 249 wrote: After recently reading about an extremely experienced UAV operator receiving a prison sentence related to a crash I'm not overly interested...
I have read about a few jail terms for folks being dufus's but no hard time. Would love to hear the rest of the story...
Here's a cheap gimbal:
[MEDIA=youtube]LEGZ7hGaMNI[/MEDIA]
I'll chime in with my experience using drones with field surveys.
At the last company I worked for, one of our party chiefs was a UAV licensed pilot. We had a drone with a conventional camera (not LiDAR) that we used to fly sites up to about 40 acres. Workflow went something like this:
1. Crew arrived on site.
2. Drone pilot would identify the physical limits of the survey and paint targets on the ground in appropriate locations (red X's).
3. Meanwhile, the other person would set up the GPS base and start taking shots on the painted X's.
4. Once the targets were shot by GPS, the drone would go up and fly the site. The pilot kept his eyes on the drone, the other started searching for boundary.
5. Flight done, the boundary search would be finished and local control (PK nails, spikes, whatever) would be set.
6. Conventional survey methods would be used to take shots on "hard surfaces" and other necessary features. The focus would be on things not readily seen in the drone imagery.
7. Once done, the crew packed up and brought in the data.
8. In the office, I would download their points file and imagery.
9. We used Pix4D, and I would "tag" the flight targets in the appropriate photos and assign the surveyed point for that target.
10. Set the software running and we'd get a point cloud and ortho-rectified photo.
11. Boundary was resolved as we always had.
12. Topography was drawn based upon a combination of field shots and imagery data.
So it wasn't much of a change from previous work flow. The key difference, and this is what sold us on using drones, was that the end result was a topography drawing with a beautiful, high resolution orthophoto as an underlay to the drawing. When clients saw this, they absolutely loved it. As is said, a picture paints a thousand words, and this was no exception. When you can talk with a client about their site and point at a picture and say something like, "Over here, next to that existing sidewalk, there's a steep drop off. And you can see the low point here based on how the grass is greener." Or whatever the talking point is. Clients can see the site and relate in their mind what is there with what you're trying to explain. Not all of them have that understanding with traditional "line only" topography. And if my boundary information is shown with the orthophoto underlay, they rave about that as well. It is great.
My current company is on the brink of adopting drone technology. I'm studying for my drone license and once I get that done, we will start putting drone work into our deliverables.
skwyd, post: 449312, member: 6874 wrote: We had a drone with a conventional camera (not LiDAR) that we used to fly sites up to about 40 acres. Workflow went something like this:
You'd think for all the taxes you pay in California you'd get better service ;). I can download 1:1200 orthos from county GIS websites for the low, low price of...free.
James Fleming, post: 449324, member: 136 wrote: You'd think for all the taxes you pay in California you'd get better service ;). I can download 1:1200 orthos from county GIS websites for the low, low price of...free.
Yeah, but I don't think a lot of the counties here have orthos of the land. Plus, nothing beats having an image of the day of the survey. On one of my sites, we flew it the day after the underground was marked up. You could read the paint marks in the ortho. In color.
One thing we also would add to our products was 360 onsite images. The crew had a 360 camera mounted on top of the rod, so they could take a shot on the site and call it "Pic4" (or whatever). Then they'd take a panoramic image at that point. We could put a link in the CAD file that would show up in the PDF such that clicking on it would allow viewing of an onsite 360 image of the site at that point that the client could pan around.
Adam P, post: 448681, member: 10824 wrote: Has anyone been using drones lately? How does it work for surveying, is it accurate? Are the process complicated at all? My boss has been thinking that within the next 5 years, we??ll lose a lot of business if we don??t have our own drones.
You will lose a lot of business whether you do or not, TO GIS BUTTON PUSHERS OR JUST PLAIN BUTTON PUSHERS practicing surveying without a license, and not censured.
James Fleming, post: 449324, member: 136 wrote: You'd think for all the taxes you pay in California you'd get better service ;). I can download 1:1200 orthos from county GIS websites for the low, low price of...free.
Fine if all you need is 1:1200 but the UAV will give 1:200, much more useful for many things. Skwyd's workflow is much the same as ours.although our sites tend to be much larger. We hadn't used a 360 ground camera because you can get a similar result from the textured model with the added benefit of being able to select ANY point as the viewpoint - not quite as pretty, but does the same job.
Skwyd - have you tried taking those 360 images and processing them with the UAV data to fill in under foliage or add more detail to building faces in the point cloud - we found that building face detail worked well, filling under canopy less so.
[MEDIA=youtube]kuXkLwnx_ak[/MEDIA]
PS. In Aussie lingo, snag = sausage.
Lee County Florida has free LIDAR data available online, as well as up to date aerial images, not to mention a "plethora" of free GIS/KML files to download. I can see the benefit of the detailed imagery discussed above in the final product, but if I can do pretty much all the presentation documents from my chair, why invest in a drone? Kudos to those of you out there doing it and working on the "Bleeding edge**" (**trademark RADU) not unlike the first time buyers of static GPS units. You are doing the work that many of us will benefit from later.
Andy J, post: 450269, member: 44 wrote: Lee County Florida has free LIDAR data available online, as well as up to date aerial images, not to mention a "plethora" of free GIS/KML files to download. I can see the benefit of the detailed imagery discussed above in the final product, but if I can do pretty much all the presentation documents from my chair, why invest in a drone? Kudos to those of you out there doing it and working on the "Bleeding edge**" (**trademark RADU) not unlike the first time buyers of static GPS units. You are doing the work that many of us will benefit from later.
The question is: are drones the future?
The answer is no, they will not BE the future. I think the question should be: will drones be a regular, or frequent PART of the future. The answer is yes.
Just like gps did not outright replace anything. Drones will not replace anything. It's additive when it's beneficial. And the threshold of beneficial is getting lower. More OTS software and lower cost equipment.
Lidar was exotic, and file formats were many. Now lidar point cloud data has fewer recognized formats that allows for easier integration into workflow. And hardly exotic. Drone operation and data output will also become normal, or at least closer to normal. And used more often when beneficial.
