My First Mapping Attempt

[Ron Caballero CAP]

Mapping of a disaster area with great detail or searching for a missing person or downed aircraft requires precise and detailed mapping. Here is my first attempt, using my Mavic Air, around my home. The blue dot on the left side is where I was standing. Google earth does not yet show my house. The cropped photo on the right is actually a 3D image that can be seen in the great detail required using other software. I also have to build my hours flying to qualify as a Mission Pilot for the Civil Air Patrol. I am currently a navigator and airborne pilot in regular Cessna aircraft. Using my own drone to practice and to enjoy for great photos and videos is not something possible in CAP aircraft.
I used Pix4D to plan, fly and take the photos at 150 feet AGL. This is but one of several photo mission planning softwares available. I used Metashape (formerly Photoscan) to process the 110 photos that were taken. I used the "High" settings for the most detail, so it took over six hours to process. CAP missions do not normally require high unless we are taking photos of damaged structures or orther important locations. You see, here, the crisscross pattern I used. Another project will be to do this again using only back and forth photos. The 80% Overlap I used here may be sufficient. Fewer photos, at Medium settings will process much more quickly.
(Thanks to Phantomrain.org for his guidance in helping me create my first real post here).

 

[Detritalgeo]

Incredible what it can do, gets even better with a few ground control points.

I have been processing with the free ODM software and it's pretty good (not as good as the big for-profit names getting better).

I really hope the MA2 is made available for 3rd party mapping apps as well.

 

[Vic Moss]

Overall a pretty nice map coming out of a Mavic Air.

Without the mechanical global shutter, it's not an ideal mapping drone, but it will do in a pinch. You can see some of rolling shutter artifacts in the home on the very upper left corner, but overall nicely done.

If this is viewed at 100%, you could't use this as a missing person map due to lack of resolution. But a lower altitude would help.

Unfortunately, a six hour processing time would likely turn this search mission into a recovery mission. And this as a very small area you flew.

I'm not sure of the viability of this as a tool for SAR. A Mavic 2 ED would be a better choice. But as you said, you're building hours to fly for CAD missions.

 

[Ron Caballero CAP]

Incredible what it can do, gets even better with a few ground control points.

I have been processing with the free ODM software and it's pretty good (not as good as the big for-profit names getting better).

I really hope the MA2 is made available for 3rd party mapping apps as well.

I did a search for "free ODM software" and found "OBD" mapping software. Is that what you are talking about?

 

[Detritalgeo]

Hi, try to search for: Drone Mapping Software - OpenDroneMap

It works very well given the cost and if you find it useful consider donating to the cause! Please keep in mind that there is some technical work to get it running and it runs locally on your machine using a Linux container so at least 16gb ram is recommended but you can do small projects with only 8gb.

Also, here is a guy that just recently reviewed the service..

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Cheers,

Matt

 

[Ron Caballero CAP]

Hi, try to search for: Drone Mapping Software - OpenDroneMap

It works very well given the cost and if you find it useful consider donating to the cause! Please keep in mind that there is some technical work to get it running and it runs locally on your machine using a Linux container so at least 16gb ram is recommended but you can do small projects with only 8gb.

Also, here is a guy that just recently reviewed the service..

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Cheers,

Matt

I just mapped and created a 3D image of small valleys in the desert near my home. I used (free) Drone Deploy and (paid) Metashape (formerly Photoscan). Processing took quite a few hours, but I could work on other things at the same time.