Drone Mapping

[Meta4]

Maybe better to check out fixed wing drones, quite a few made for mapping purposes, and they are very efficient and much longer range then typical quad drones, even the more commercial type DJI units like the matrice etc.

The job is too big for drones.
It's around 154 square miles.

 

[BigAl07]

........

The size of the site can be approximated as a circle 7 miles in radius.

Very few trees, but a fair amount of sagebrush. Northern Nevada!

Thx,

MM

As stated above, this is NOT a Drone/UAS type of project. It's many magnitudes too big for a Drone. This is one of those situations where you need to find the right TOOL for the job and even though doing it by Drone would be COOL it's incredibly unsuited/impractical for this size of a job.

To make a comparison, it would be like using a child's toy hammer to build the Biltmore Estate

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

The job is too big for drones.
It's around 154 square miles.

Yes, wasn't sure how large an area (reasonably affordable) fixed wing ones could cover.
A little reading found quads of decent capability are ok for up to a few hundred acres, fixed wing approx 10 x more area is practical, so a few thousand square acres.
The 154 square miles is around 98,500 acres !!

I found ebee and wingtra sites informative, wingtra in particular seems to heve the better range / capability etc . . .

WingtraOne GEN II - Mapping drone for fast and accurate survey data | Wingtra

The WingtraOne mapping drone provides high-quality survey data faster and at a lower cost than other surveying tools.

wingtra.com

 

[NorthEastJohn]

This area would probably be too big for drone mapping and would be better done with conventional aerial mapping from a plane.
If you were to do it with a drone, flying at 400 ft you would have to make approximately 570 separate flights and capture about 217000 images.
With a single operator, flying 10 flights per day, that would take two months.
Finding a computer to handle that much data would be a huge problem.
This is not a job you could realistically do with a drone.

Agree with Meta4. A plane will provide much higher resolution for Thermal images and you will only need to process about 1\10th the images. I do a lot of map data acquisition for two large Solar Service providers. I usually fly missions in the city on commercial rooftops and sites under 20 acres. Believe hourly rate for the plane per what my client said is $2400 an hour. PS. I'm flying Matrice 200 with TB50 batteries. Can collect just under 5 acres per flight. Collecting 79% overlap front/side at 145ft, that's around 500 thermal and 500 RGB.

 

[jencarta]

There are many different mapping apps, but the big difference is which drones can be used. Apps like Litchi work even on the Mavic Mini. But, the Mini cannot upload a batch of waypoints and be sent on its way autonomously, because the Mini has no storage for such waypoints. In that case the app is actively steering the drone to each next waypoint. It requires a constant connection between the app and drone.

Other drones, like my older Phantom 3 Pro, can pre-load a large set of waypoints, and be sent off on its own to complete a mission.

I've been experimenting with mapping using MapsMadeEasy. Maps Made Easy - Home The many captured photos are uploaded to them and, for a fee, they stitch them and produce 3D renders etc. Other apps work similarly, offering "free" trials to get you hooked, then charging a subscription fee.

If you want to play truly for free, you can download and install the PIX4DCapture app and use that for automating the image capture process. Then, rather than uploading the many captured images for paid processing by them, you can instead process them on your own computer using the free Open Drone Map software.

There are different versions available. The simplest is WebODM. There is no subscription fee. The manual installation version is entirely free, but complex. I tried that one first, followed all the steps required, but kept getting error and failure messages. I found it's worth the small one-time cost to purchase the Windows "Installer" version, as that functioned perfectly. There's a 30 day money-back guarantee if you don't like it.

Good info! For work, we’ve got a Mavic 2 Pro and a Parrot Anafi for mapping (we also have a Mavic 3 we hope to be able to use!) I have used Pix4DCapture, DJI Ground Station Pro, ESRI SiteScan LE, and UgCS for mapping - being limited to free apps. Pix4DCapture is my favorite. It’s easy to use and works with both our drones. The flight tracks are easy to download as well. Litchi is an inexpensive app that is often used for mapping but I have yet to try it.

And though we use the expensive software Agisoft Metashape for a lot of processing, we also use Pix4DReact for incident response because it is inexpensive and fast and does a pretty good job! We have also tried a free online service that worked pretty well but I can’t remember the URL or what it’s called. I’ll post it if I find it.

 

[3dphotodrone]

You're right...it's not clear yet! This is helpful thanks.

It's clear my Mini-2s aren't going to cut it for this mission. The most likely outcome is that I'll be hiring one or more pilots with bigger iron to do the job. But I just want to educate myself on the whole process before getting to that point. Which will include understanding what the various apps are and what they do, even though it's highly unlikely that I'll be personally dong any of the flying.

The size of the site can be approximated as a circle 7 miles in radius.

Very few trees, but a fair amount of sagebrush. Northern Nevada!

Thx,

MM

Don't underestimate the mini series. You can do most of the same things and the camera is a lot more than you think. Make sure you have a good overlap and shoot it on a sunny day

 

[Meta4]

Don't underestimate the mini series. You can do most of the same things and the camera is a lot more than you think.

When it comes to mapping, the Mini series aren't the right tools.
You might be able to manually fly an acre or two, but you need a mapping app to fly a precise grid and maintain consistent overlaps of 70% or more for hundreds of images.
The mini doesn't have the ability to have a mapping mission loaded into its memory and be able to carry out an autonomous flight of this complexity.
The drones that can do this are shown here:

https://help.dronedeploy.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500004964842-Recommended-and-Supported-Drones

Make sure you have a good overlap and shoot it on a sunny day

If the site has trees or structures, the best results are achieved in overcast conditions to avoid shadows and bright spots.

 

[doncooke]

I'm tempted to ask if you've experimented with Google Earth Pro. It used to be $400 a year but it's free now. It's possible that it might support whatever mission you're considering undertaking. You can create excellent small patches of orthophotography with a Mini-II, DroneLink and WebODM. Even export KMZ files that Google Earth can ingest. BUT, note "small patches". Your site is not a small patch!

 

[Moozer]

I created a 3d map of my college's 365-acre farm, and it involved a *lot* of flights and even more processing. I can't imagine trying to do an area the size you need!

 

[Helmie]

Bit late to the party, but...

I use the free functionality of drone harmony to do flights, then ODM to do the processing on my computer. I use an Air2, but it supposedly supports the mini 2, though I cannot comment on what it might be like for endurance and coverage.

It could almost certainly give you a decent orthomosaic, point cloud and DSM, suitable for your needs.