What 3D Photogrammetry App do you use or have you tried.

[Rick]

If you have tried using the Mavic for creating 3D aerial imagery, what app are you using and how are the results?
The reason I ask is that I find the genre fascinating having dabbled very briefly with Altizure. The cost of processing these images seems to vary greatly, but as a starting point, Altizure seems a good place to try as it has a free option albeit with limitations.. I want to try Both Dronedeploy and Agisoft. The standard paid version of Agisoft is probably the least expensive, but the trial version is severely time limited. Dronedeploy seems to be one of the best Apps but is cripplingly expensive.
On a separate issue concerning GPS position relative to the image captured and the location of the drone. I understand that to get the best results it is necessary to add oblique images shot by example as a POI, as well as the standard grid images shot with the camera facing straight down. This being the case, how does the the GPS meta data work flying a POI mission when the subject target camera view is not the grid reference relative to where the drone is capturing these images. Grid view shots will be fine as the drone is flying directly over what it "sees", whereas POI shots will have the drone position at a different location to the image captured. How does the App work out relative heights from these images that the drone shot, effectively at different locations?

 

[paalkr77]

Pix4d is a good alternative. Also drone2map by Esri is very good if you are into a commercial business or education. I don't think Esri offer the ArcGIS platform to private persons. I have used drone2map, pix4d and dronedeploy with success.

 

[Rick]

Pix4d is a good alternative. Also drone2map by Esri is very good if you are into a commercial business or education. I don't think Esri offer the ArcGIS platform to private persons. I have used drone2map, pix4d and dronedeploy with success.

Hi, and thanks for the reply. Do you know if they all offer a free trial period and do they offer a varied price structure depending on frequency of use?

 

[TexInPa]

Maps Made Easy offers pricing by the acre, even offers free points to collect at sign up. Even has free maps less than 250 points.
Maps Made Easy - Pricing

 

[Bunny Too]

Does the new DJI "Ground Station Pro" for ipad do this?
Regards,
-d.

 

[TexInPa]

Yes for mission planning, looks like a nice app will download a try it out since its free. Thanks

 

[Rick]

Thanks for the two suggestions guys. I'm using an Android device at this time, but will enquire if my o/s might be covered in the future.

 

[TexInPa]

Might want to try Pix4D capture it's free

 

[Gilly]

I use the free Drone Deploy and find it excellent. Its for a commercial venture so the price didnt seem too bad to me. I tried Pix4D and an AutoDesk offering but didn't get on with them. Drone deploy has a very very user friendly interface and utilises cloud processing so you don't need a $4k machine to process the maps!

 

[Rick]

I hadn't realised both Dronedeploy and pix4d have free use offerings, so I'll investigate cirrus. Anyone used Agisoft as a comparison to other apps?

I'm using the free option of Altizure which also seems a user friendly cloud based app. First two examples here;
Chris G garden first project test

and here;
Utkinton hill

 

[Gilly]

Here is a basic map I created of my house with DroneDeploy. I do mean basic as it was only 80 odd images from one orbit. I'm going to redo it with some more nadir images to allow the soffits etc with better detail

Edit: try again...shared wrong map

1481371736_3ENGILLOPENPIPELINE

 

[Rick]

Looks very good for a single pass. It looks like a massive teddy bear has crashed through your garden gates though!

 

[Gilly]

Yeah it did seem to struggle with thin objects like the fence and gates. I've been meaning to redo it for a while but never gotten round to it!

 

[Rick]

Latest attempt using Altizure using five separate passes gives a pretty good result
Chris House

 

[Gilly]

I've been looking into this a bit more lately and I've found Altizure + Pix4D to be very similar results wise. Dronedeploy a very close second. Altizure is useless for me as it doesn't yet have the outputs and interrogation side I require.

Pix4D is brilliant except it requires a capable machine to run there desktop client which is where a lot of their outputs come from. Cloud processing is good and quick but limits what you can actually do with the info. For a quick model it is brilliant. I'm running an i5 with 30gb ram but my GPU is bottle-necking and making it unusable!

Drone deploy isn't quite there detail wise for the same input but the pro version has more resolution apparently. Need to run the top spec package for a month to see if the outputs are comparable to Pix4D. If they are its a no brainer as Pix4D's recommended PC is an expensive build!

 

[Rick]

I've been looking into this a bit more lately and I've found Altizure + Pix4D to be very similar results wise. Dronedeploy a very close second. Altizure is useless for me as it doesn't yet have the outputs and interrogation side I require.

Pix4D is brilliant except it requires a capable machine to run there desktop client which is where a lot of their outputs come from. Cloud processing is good and quick but limits what you can actually do with the info. For a quick model it is brilliant. I'm running an i5 with 30gb ram but my GPU is bottle-necking and making it unusable!our see see

Drone deploy isn't quite there detail wise for the same input but the pro version has more resolution apparently. Need to run the top spec package for a month to see if the outputs are comparable to Pix4D. If they are its a no brainer as Pix4D's recommended PC is an expensive build!

That makes for interesting reading Gilly. To summarise, if Dronedeploy Pro's higher resolution matches the results obtained from Pix4d, then utilising an online cloud based processing host would be the way to go rather than investing in an expensive high spec PC to process your data "in house" using Pix4d.
I have yet to see anyone making a comparison against Agisoft which seems to offer the cheapest post production processing costs with what look like reasonably good quality results.

 

[halley]

I was looking at DroneDeploy and Pix4D to export their 3D mesh model data, but they're prohibitively expensive for hobby users. DroneDeploy's free service doesn't include exports, and Pix4D runs into the thousands. I also found Altizure but their web page is purposely vague about pricing with a pseudo-currency scheme, and no concrete examples of price vs results.

There is an open-source OpenDroneMap project, but the results so far are a bit behind the industrial players.

 

[Rick]

Thanks for the reply halley. I agree with your opinion on pricing. Some offer an inflated annual fee while others charge on a data size rate. In the case of the latter, it's hard to assess the end cost of any project before the event, as you can only guess how much data any one project might produce.
I will have a look for OpenDroneMap, thanks again for the heads up.
Have you or anyone else tried Agisoft?

 

[bakerboy]

Yes, I run agisoft photoscan, get pretty good results with it

Here's a chimney that DD didn't model at all
Coogee Smoke Stack by West Coast Aerial Imagery - 3D model

And here's a quarry from DD, I have since done it in photoscan with GCPs, you can tell it has no GCP by the curve in the model
17 3015 Quarry In-Fill Model by West Coast Aerial Imagery - 3D model

 

[Rick]

Hi bakerboy, and thanks for the info.
I seem to remember there are two variants of the paid for version of Agisoft. One is for over $3,000.00 and the other around $150.00; the difference being commercial and hobby. Are there significant differences in the two versions and does the fee include processing?