AutoCAD .dwg

[Deepwater]

My partners and I are developing a real estate project. The area covers appr. 2,500-m x 1,000-m.

Roads and properties are all on an AutoCAD .dwg file. I can also have other file formats made available. Elevation change is appr. 125-m.

I would like to fly the roads and properties to take video and still shots using my DJI Mavic 2 Pro.

1. Is there a way of using the AutoCAD .dwg file (or other file formats) as input in the planning of the flight and video / still shots?

2. What is the best app to use for the project (DJI, Litchi, DroneDeploy etc.)?

Thank you for your feedback.

 

[53-63-6f-74-74]

Your desired output would dictate the most useful app. I don't believe any flight app will accept a cad file. Litchi accepts KML & DroneDeploy will accept a KML or SHP. If you want autonomous video or photos for marketing then I would use Litchi for waypoint flight. I would use a combination of Google Earth and the Litchi Mission hub to plan with a KML, then fly the mission virtually using Virtual Litchi Mission.

 

[Twocalf]

Do you know what units the X and Y coordinates are in your CAD drawing? They're probably based on a 0,0 origin somewhere to the SW of your project site and not in latitude/longitude coordinates. Your CAD Z coordinates are probably all at a 0 elevation. If you're lucky maybe they're in some UTM system and those could be converted to lat/lon which I believe that all of the waypoint programs require. Then conceivably you could plan a waypoint mission using the digital coordinates from your CAD drawing to follow some flight plan which then could be uploaded to your remote and then executed using either the DJI GO4 app or a third party app like Litchi.

 

[53-63-6f-74-74]

Do you know what units the X and Y coordinates are in your CAD drawing? They're probably based on a 0,0 origin somewhere to the SW of your project site and not in latitude/longitude coordinates. Your CAD Z coordinates are probably all at a 0 elevation. If you're lucky maybe they're in some UTM system and those could be converted to lat/lon which I believe that all of the waypoint programs require. Then conceivably you could plan a waypoint mission using the digital coordinates from your CAD drawing to follow some flight plan which then could be uploaded to your remote and then executed using either the DJI GO4 app or a third party app like Litchi.

It's quite simple to convert a dwg file into other formats but I did neglect to mention that the KML would import properly and directly into Google Earth, Litchi, or Drone Deploy IF the drawing does not have an arbitrary coordinate system. If that's the case then the dwg could be roughly geo-referenced first. The quick way is to bring a referenced background image into the dwg and align to it. The KML would "drape" on Google Earth terrain so rough elevations would be available. A Google Earth path can import directly into Litchi Mission Hub as a KML.