I was browsing LinkedIn today and saw an update from a drone user with the following stated:
"Using our drone we scanned and mapped [RETRACTED] for an engineering firm that needed to survey the site. We saved the company significant project time and money. This survey will be used to construct new sidewalks and other improvements along this stretch. The data our drone captured came out extremely accurate within plus or minus 1/10 of an inch. For safety we had the police shut down the road when the drone was flying so it wouldn't be directly over vehicles or people."
In the comments another drone user posted:
"Drone technology has its advantages! With some of our equipment that we have, we have ways to get it down to 1 or 2 millimeters."
What I see here is a group of users who have swallowed the promises of software and drone manufacturers hook line and sinker. I haven't seen their data, but I know getting an absolute accuracy of a "1 to 2 millimeters" is hard enough using LIDAR technology on a large site, the idea that a remote sensing device using photography alone can achieve that, I find woefully unrealistic. I have so many questions, like how did they establish ground control to 1/10th of an inch? How do the eliminate low brush and grass from the data?
I want to believe that companies offering services like this will eventually get exposed and end up with a firm-ending lawsuit, but in the mean time it poses a legitimate threat to public. They are offering services and promising results that are not realistic, yet in this case an engineering firm will be relying on it to build public walkways (using public funds, no doubt).
FYI, 1/10th of an inch is 0.008 feet and 2 millimeters is 0.006 feet.
geopro_consultants, post: 391581, member: 9959 wrote: I was browsing LinkedIn today and saw an update from a drone user with the following stated:
What I see here is a group of users who have swallowed the promises of software and drone manufacturers hook line and sinker.
I think the guys using the drones and making these claims are well aware that they are lying through their teeth to clients. There is one company here making wild claims as well. Thankfully most of the clients I speak to can see through their crap and that they are offering a substandard survey product. It just smacks of complete laziness to just send up the drone and try to produce a normal survey product from it.
I do see how it would have its uses for some applications.
It's called marketing.
More and more engineering firms of all
sizes are hiring graduates with marketing degrees for their business development.
Besides being active in their local area of business procurement. They maintain a high profile on social media such as LinkedIn etc.
Robert Hill, post: 391584, member: 378 wrote: It's called marketing.
If you bought a total station from an equipment dealer and he sold it to you as a 1" instrument, and it turned out to be a 5" instrument.. is that marketing or fraud?
Even if the equipment was capable of producing those results (which it isn't) the Surveyor is the one selling the idea. I presume the Surveyor is also certifying the map (not the manufacturer or salesman).
The whole thing sounds and has squirrelly aspect to
It all.
Who refers to measurements to the 1/10"? No one that I can recall.
It's not a surveying firm from best I can tell, they're a"drone company."
Robert Hill, post: 391598, member: 378 wrote: The whole thing sounds and has squirrelly aspect to
It all.
Who refers to measurements to the 1/10"? No one that I can recall.
Weasel Words... so he says to the judge "that is a obvious typo, it was supposed to be 1/10 feet! everyone knows that"
I worked in Alaska, a reputable group had done some work for us on comparing GPS mapping versus drone....and the precision was around 0.2' vertically.
Our EBEE UAV, which we use for Ortho photo's and some planning work thus far has manufacturer's specs listed at Vert Acc. 3/5cm with Ground control points that are pretty well saturated throughout a flight area. Staing accuracies lower than that INMHO is incorrect.
They're probably boasting about the accuracy of their cloud registration but making it sound like the accuracy of ground measurements compared to the cloud.
As I pointed out in a post last week about a large bridge damaged by fire, the paper said:
"A crew used a surveying device known as a robotic total station. The device uses mirrors, a laser, and a series of sensors to test every half hour 24 hours a day for any movement of the bridge...The good news is the bridge has moved less than 1/1000th of an inch since the fire".
The same number was repeated in a story the next day, I would think if they were misquoted they would have said something right away to the newspaper.
I think we will see an explosion of people offering drone mapping, and making wild claims. Hopefully they will filter themselves out of business by not providing what is claimed.
There will be an absolute explosion of people offering "drone" services because it is the current buzz word AND anybody with a bit of cash can buy one.
I don't look for surveyors to be the big user of UAV's just like surveyor's are NOT the biggest user of GNSS, the drone has left the hangar and I think it will be a free for all.
SHG
John Hamilton, post: 391719, member: 640 wrote: As I pointed out in a post last week about a large bridge damaged by fire, the paper said:
"A crew used a surveying device known as a robotic total station. The device uses mirrors, a laser, and a series of sensors to test every half hour 24 hours a day for any movement of the bridge...The good news is the bridge has moved less than 1/1000th of an inch since the fire".
The same number was repeated in a story the next day, I would think if they were misquoted they would have said something right away to the newspaper.
I was on a site the other day and brought up the ridiculousness of that claim. Turns out a company that set up the monitoring on that project is a supplier and one of their people was on site for a demo. He went on to explain they mounted prisms to the bridge and continuously shot them so the paper was accurate. The only thought going through my mind was the statement years ago when GPS was becoming mainstream. "The only difference between a used car salesman and a GPS salesmen is the car salesman knows he's lying."
When the drone shows up with my Pizza Hut pizza I want it to set it down, properly balanced, on my right pointer finger and little finger.
PA PLS, post: 391742, member: 9658 wrote: I was on a site the other day and brought up the ridiculousness of that claim. Turns out a company that set up the monitoring on that project is a supplier and one of their people was on site for a demo. He went on to explain they mounted prisms to the bridge and continuously shot them so the paper was accurate. The only thought going through my mind was the statement years ago when GPS was becoming mainstream. "The only difference between a used car salesman and a GPS salesmen is the car salesman knows he's lying."
Well, if someone in that company thinks that anything near that accuracy is attainable, they are idiots. We do a LOT of monitoring. Knowing the situation out there, and what the bridge looks like, I think the best that could be attained is 1-2 mm, versus the 25 microns they are claiming (0.025 mm). And to get that you need a high accuracy total station, a stable setup, and need to be measuring and taking into account temperature and pressure. Yes, you can get higher accuracies in the lab, using a laser tracker under controlled conditions, but this is the field, with temperature, humidity, rain, and other factors. And the steel itself is expanding and contracting with temperature.
One might wonder, who uses inches? But, all of the monitoring work we do (23 navigation lock and dams and 16 reservoir dams) was previously done using a target mounted micrometer that read out in fractions of an inch. So, since 2005 when we started I have often converted our mm offsets to inches for compatibility with past results. But now we are giving them results in millimeters after converting the old data over to metric.
The car salesman lies 100% of the time, but the GNSS salesman only lies 95% of the time.
Robert Hill, post: 391584, member: 378 wrote: It's called marketing.
No, it's called false advertising or misrepresentation. Nevermind that the staff at an engineering firm didn't understand the true capabilities of the technology, or that it was their marketing person rather than a licensee who wrote and published the claim. The licensed management in responsible charge of the firm are responsible for the veracity of any marketing claims made, and those licensees should have known the actual limitations of the technology that they or their staff is using.
These kinds of BS claims ties in directly with the thread on vertical accuracy that Jim Frame posted. Legitimate and responsible firms lose business to firms making ignorant claims or deliberate misrepresentations of their capabilities far too often. IMO, it's an issue that the licensing boards could and should pursue. Unfortunately, the philosophy at our board is that the "best engineers, the best surveyors, don't make the best experts" for reviewing practice matters. Based on what I've seen come out of their enforcement unit in recent years, it would be just as likely that the "expert" opines that those are legitimate claims as not.
Shelby H. Griggs PLS, post: 391733, member: 335 wrote: There will be an absolute explosion of people offering "drone" services because it is the current buzz word AND anybody with a bit of cash can buy one.
I don't look for surveyors to be the big user of UAV's just like surveyor's are NOT the biggest user of GNSS, the drone has left the hangar and I think it will be a free for all.
SHG
Shelby - the day is here in not only drones, but in Alaska - Structure from Motion (SfM) - where any pilot with an airplane bold enough to cut another hole in the belly of their plane.
Back to this thread. Surveyors need to become drone pilots in my opinion, and now its safer because you guys can stay on the ground. Don't let this opportunity pass you guys up like the "GIS thing". I think you can make serious, maybe, good money on this, and with verifiable results for most of what the world wants (a very pretty picture and coordinates too!).... We in the GIS community will turn to you... we "get this" and if you can produce verifiable check points with your stamp, more the better. Please, we need you.