Has anyone found any uses for a drone for general land surveying?
Not the super high end Lidar type, just a more typical drone.
Thanks
FLS, post: 349311, member: 647 wrote: Has anyone found any uses for a drone for general land surveying?
Not the super high end Lidar type, just a more typical drone.
Thanks
Have you tried typing "drones" into the search box in the upper right hand corner of the page? I pull up well over 10 pages of posts on drones here, many of them on the subject of using consumer drones in surveying. Here's just one I found almost at random, that includes a link to a video showing use of a consumer grade camera and drone for aerial surveying.:
https://surveyorconnect.com/threads/any-good-cheap-drones-out-there.296345/
I'm sure you'll find more with a little more search effort.
FLS, post: 349311, member: 647 wrote: Has anyone found any uses for a drone for general land surveying?
Not the super high end Lidar type, just a more typical drone.
Thanks
I see it being very useful tool to generate aerial images for topographic surveys...if nothing else, just to help the guy in the office reducing the field data.
There are many times, I see features or structures placed on a map with a note "approx. location". I could see being able to generate something much better than approx.
Obviously there is much development being done to enable the drone to actually capture the field data.
Step one, could simply be an eye in the sky.
Thanks.
I did a search earlier and it seemed more high tech uses....
Just be sure to have your FAA exemptions in place. This is required for any type of commercial drone use.
My brother, while visiting New Zealand back in 2004, sent me pictures of Land Surveyors using a remote control helicopter with a camera to take aerials of the neighboring property. He spoke with them briefly and found out that the neighbor was not permitting access to the property but there were features they needed to get so they were going to use the aerial photos.
Not dissimilar to what I have done with Google Earth or local flown topo's provided by the towns.
Dtp
I'm thinking about getting one in the not so distant future. Probably once:
1) the FAA comes out with the new commercial regulations for mini uas
2) a job presents itself for the need.
Like a topographic survey of a golf course. I would manually run a traverse around the perimeter to locate boundary and all boundary features and then use the drone to do the topo and locate all roadways, parking lots etc.
And I would then be able to charge enough for the job to cover the cost of the drone. Free drone at that point for future use
I'm thinking about getting one in the not so distant future. Probably once:
1) the FAA comes out with the new commercial regulations for mini uas
2) a job presents itself for the need.
Like a topographic survey of a golf course. I would manually run a traverse around the perimeter to locate boundary and all boundary features and then use the drone to do the topo and locate all roadways, parking lots etc.
And I would then be able to charge enough for the job to cover the cost of the drone. Free drone at that point for future use
It's too late when a job presents itself.
If the FAA regulations turn out to be anything like the ones in Europe then you'll be spending at least 6 months between making the decision and getting permission to do commercial work. All the authorities currently treat UAV's like any other manned aircraft, so you need to learn all the theory, air law, etc. It isn't like buying a GPS receiver and going out to do work. Then you need to get your head around ground control points and how they influence the shape of the model distortions.
You are right about boundary features. All too often these will be under vegetation cover and need some ground work - general alignments can be picked out from the photography (quite surprisingly well) but you can't always see the detail of kinks in fencelines under tree cover etc. It's surprising what can and cannot be seen. For instance, the safety cord (approx 1/10th. inch) on the launch line often shows up from 400 foot up but a utility cover in a track might not. All to do with relative contrast.
They are using them daily here, not lidar, just a drone with a preprogrammed flight plan, a small camera taking pictures, ground control for fixing the photos and you have a good topo, contours and all, the computer program is the difficult part from what I understand.
The topo is good from what I've checked and the photo is really good, it's a new world.
The drone doesn't need lidar or RTK, there is a cheap GPS unit onboard just to navagate.
Adding lidar and RTK zooms the expense way up.
Drones cant see through trees and can't cut line. Drones can't dig holes and recover evidence. Sure, other robots might be able too but nothing will ever beat boots on the ground. Google Earth is free.
those building corners that are covered by roofs can still be picked up from images where they are visible in the software, same with trees which have trunks visible on individual pictures. The flight has to be planned in such a way that whatever has roofs, canopies on top is visible from a side. Than these individual points can be exported and overlayed with orthophoto (on orthophoto roofs, canopies etc hide building corners, tree trunks).
of course legal pins have to be dug and tied in manually.
Recently our company hired a drone to fly a recently completed project to take pictures for marketing purposes. The cost was $300.
Get ready to have to get a Drone Pilots License. FAA now requires them. I don't think it's one of those "pays yer money, gets yer ticket" set up.
chris mills, post: 349671, member: 6244 wrote: It's too late when a job presents itself.
If the FAA regulations turn out to be anything like the ones in Europe then you'll be spending at least 6 months between making the decision and getting permission to do commercial work. All the authorities currently treat UAV's like any other manned aircraft, so you need to learn all the theory, air law, etc. It isn't like buying a GPS receiver and going out to do work. Then you need to get your head around ground control points and how they influence the shape of the model distortions.
You are right about boundary features. All too often these will be under vegetation cover and need some ground work - general alignments can be picked out from the photography (quite surprisingly well) but you can't always see the detail of kinks in fencelines under tree cover etc. It's surprising what can and cannot be seen. For instance, the safety cord (approx 1/10th. inch) on the launch line often shows up from 400 foot up but a utility cover in a track might not. All to do with relative contrast.
Yes true. My hope is the new regulations are not as strict as the ones currently in effect.
The regulations right now are basically the same as flying an aircraft with the need to have a sports pilot license. For a 1.5 lb styrofoam drone that's a bit excessive. Especially when all the booger pickers are out there right now flying their cameras around with nothing but registering their drone online.
So I hope the new commercial micro drone classification regulations are more along that line. I know they will be more than recreational use, but maybe something like registration and an air safety class.
Rich., post: 349926, member: 10450 wrote: booger pickers
heh heh heh
I expect that the business model for getting the flights done, due to the special requirements the FAA will impose, will be somewhat similar to what we have today. Surveyors will hire a flying service to do the actual flying and photography. One guy with a single drone can probably fly several sites in a day - and cover the needs of several survey offices at least. The difference will be that ordinary surveyors will do the photogrammetry, at the desktop without the aid of specialists.
Mark Mayer, post: 349935, member: 424 wrote: The difference will be that ordinary surveyors will do the photogrammetry, at the desktop without the aid of specialists.
And without specialized training in the science of photogrammetry...after all it is a model that worked so well in the with GIS technicians and GPS that land surveyors might as well get in on the fun.
James Fleming, post: 349951, member: 136 wrote: And without specialized training in the science of photogrammetry...after all it is a model that worked so well in the with GIS technicians and GPS that land surveyors might as well get in on the fun.
Is that not the way that it has been with all new technologies, GPS, LiDAR,and Drones? The salesman claims exceed the user's skill level for years to come. Conscientious Surveyors will know what they need to know before entering the market. Yes, we still have Surveyors that are dangerous with GPS. and surveying in general.
Very true. If you don't understand the ground control and the processing then the errors spiral VERY rapidly out of control.
Mark Mayer's prediction probably holds only where sites are close together. For most ground survey flights (as opposed to repeat stockheaps, pure photography, etc.) you might well spend several hours putting in ground control and verification survey before any thought of flight takes place. By the time the aircraft is pre-flight checked, flown and post checked and all the paperwork done two jobs a day would probably be the maximum.
Out in the wilderness it might be straightforward, but in habited areas there are quite a lot of safety and PR matters to address before flight can even be considered.
