20 Acres with Drone Deploy

[dpwarren]

Yesterday, I mapped a 20 acre parcel outside of Dallas with DroneDeploy and I wanted to share some images from the planning to production stages.

Flew at ~135 feet as to keep flight under battery timing. Unfortunately, with the wind it needed a battery exchange at 2/3 the way through. Drone Deploy alerted me, I hit the home button on Transmitter and it came home. I didn't move quad, but just exchanged the battery and hit resume in Drone Deploy. Off it went and started from the previous waypoint, causing it to take some duplicate photos.

I did some test flying around in DJI GO 4 prior to taking off to ensure that all warm ups and calibrations were clear. It was blowing 18 MPH with gusts to 25MPH and I was unsure of the Phantom 4's real capabilities.

It was a CHAMP and I was a nervous wreck...

Here is a video survey that I also flew to provide the realtor:

There are some needed improvements, but it gives buyers an idea of the property.

Planning on the DroneDeploy Website

Flying the Automated Plan, but keeping my hands on the controls

491 Photo Points

Photograph Overlay

Mapped Image Overlay
This is very high detail and I will color grade in Lightroom and add some green in Photoshop.

Detail of Image

Elevation Grades

Hovering OnSite

 

[Richard R]

Nicely done and a great demonstration of the capability from a non Drone Deploy person. Been registered with them for a while, time to get the app and start working with it.

 

[Pepino Grande]

That elevation picture would be pretty handy in showing the drainage all going away from the house.

 

[Nicrophone]

Sweet! I have been using drone deploy for my mapping for the past few months, Im quite happy with the application both mobile and online. What overlap percentage do you use? Ive been using 60% to cut down on the total flight time.

 

[Nickster]

Very nicely done. I have used the app and been very impressed as well. Richard, you will love it once you use it. It is also great for vegetation info. (see photos). The only thing I found hard to swallow is the price. So, I just include it as part of my cost to customers.

 

[Nicrophone]

Nickster have you used their contour creation yet? Im only a pro level member and need to be business or the next one up

 

[Nickster]

Nickster have you used their contour creation yet? Im only a pro level member and need to be business or the next one up

I have not. I only did the pro level. Business was too much for me to swallow for what that client needed.

The one thing you will have to watch, if in the USA, like me, are survey license requirements for topo mapping (contour), which this can do with business for autocad. I cannot legally do this since I am not a registered surveyor, nor would I state that I provide this. I am a licensed engineer, so I have a good feel for this and the stiff penalties that can be imposed if doing topo surveys without a license for people. There is a whole section dedicated every month in my state's PEPS newsletter on violations. The elevation one in pro is ok since it is general, but when you are actually producing contour maps, that will require a registered surveyor to sign and seal the survey. So, if you do that in the US, you will need to see what state requirements are and will probably need to be working under an licensed surveyor. This is what I would do if ever asked. That is what is required in Ohio, where I am registered.

There were other threads in here and Facebook that popped up on that subject. I would explore those as well.

Hope that helps.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[dpwarren]

Sweet! I have been using drone deploy for my mapping for the past few months, Im quite happy with the application both mobile and online. What overlap percentage do you use? Ive been using 60% to cut down on the total flight time.

I've been using 70-75% to ensure alignment and adjusting altitude to manage flight time. However, I am really trying to make sure that the resolution is much higher than can be retrieved with Google Maps.

 

[Nicrophone]

Cool, ya same here, I think I found my sweet spot which is 125ft at 60% overlap seems to work pretty killer.

 

[Nickster]

That is what I have been doing it at too. Good detail and still fit in the photo amount!


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[Heaths]

Just curious, but what did you charge your customer to do the 20 acres? I'm gonna start doing it for people this summer when college let's out. And was the customer happy with the price.

 

[Nicrophone]

Just curious, but what did you charge your customer to do the 20 acres? I'm gonna start doing it for people this summer when college let's out. And was the customer happy with the price.

You have to sort that out for yourself, every customer is different and has different wants and needs, also you have to take into account how much you feel your time and skills are worth. Also research what it cost to do what you are doing from a plane, keep it way under that and you should be golden. Also don't be afraid to ask customers how much they would even be willing to pay for your services.

 

[Heaths]

Thank for the insight

 

[r62ewa]

I've been using 70-75% to ensure alignment and adjusting altitude to manage flight time. However, I am really trying to make sure that the resolution is much higher than can be retrieved with Google Maps.

Have you every had image capture issues using your Phantom 4? I have tried most autonomous capture Apps, including Drone Deploy, and most times my Phantom captures images great for the first lines of the grid but then starts only capturing images sporatically for the remaining lines of the grid. I can never achieve coverage like you do with perfect image capture. If I tried your grid I would get 2 good lines of coverage and sporatic coverage after that.

 

[Richard R]

That sounds like SD card speed issue, with the app trying to take a picture before the previous one was stored. Have you tried a faster card? May also try slowing down your ground speed - same issue.

 

[r62ewa]

That sounds like SD card speed issue, with the app trying to take a picture before the previous one was stored. Have you tried a faster card? May also try slowing down your ground speed - same issue.

I have even tried using Pix4D in Safe mode where the waypoints are supposed to be uploaded to the drone and it stops and hovers at each image capture, it has the same result using this setting of starting off good but then sporatic captures after the first line or so.

 

[r62ewa]

That sounds like SD card speed issue, with the app trying to take a picture before the previous one was stored. Have you tried a faster card? May also try slowing down your ground speed - same issue.

This is the current card that I use, could it be the culprit of my image capture issues?

 

[avi 8]

That is a fast card, should not be the issue.

 

[r62ewa]

That is a fast card, should not be the issue.

There is a slight difference in writing from the image I posted earlier, the one pictured here does not have the 'V30' writing and is the exact one I have.

 

[dpwarren]

View attachment 80508 There is a slight difference in writing from the image I posted earlier, the one pictured here does not have the 'V30' writing and is the exact one I have.

Are you sure that it is not recording or is just not stitching in the software?

I recently shot three tree lined lots for a builder, with Drone Deploy and had an issue...

SIDEBAR: The builder wanted a tree survey to understand which trees to keep and design his builds around keeping as much foliage as possible. INNOVATIVE for a build!

My issue was that I was too close to the trees and the software couldn't stitch them. Here is what Drone Deploy said:

The reason the area over the trees did not stitch is due to the homogeneous nature of the trees (all look the same) and the lower effective flight altitude over them. Those two together did not provide enough unique reference features to align and stitch properly. If you were flying about 85 feet and the trees were 40 feet tall, your effective altitude over them is 85 - 40 = 45 feet, which is too low to provide effective stitching over homogeneous areas. You can see that it mapped the lower area where it had sufficient altitude and features to align. Your overlaps were good. You just need more altitude as described in this document. Each subject matter must have the flight techniques applied in such a manner as to optimize the results. In general flying higher is better. Most flights are usually best flown at 150 feet or above. Getting experience over different subject matter helps with this emerging technology.

Sometimes it is best to fly at two altitudes and upload both sets as one map. The higher one supports better alignment and stitching and the lower one supports better resolution. It depends on the subject matter, but 150 feet and 350 feet are usually good.

Let us know if this helps and how we can assist from here.

I flew higher and it was perfect.