Pre-mission, mission, and post mission software

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Hello:

Our Department just bought a Phantom 4. I am working to determine how UAS will be beneficial to our Department. I believe we will use them to perform animal surveys, create 3D models, orthomosaic photos, contours that we will import into design software, and many other applications that I have not imagined.

I am hoping that someone can share some knowledge on the software they use for pre-mission, mission, and post missions.

Regarding our animal surveys, we will need software that will allow us to load areas that the drone will automatically fly transits for; however, once we spot an animal of interest we will want to manually take over the UAS and after better looking at the animal we will want to return to the automated flight were we took over control. Are there any software packages that will allow you to take over automated flight and return back to the automated flight at the point you took over?

Regarding 3D modeling, it appears to me that Pix4D is the best solution right now. Are there other packages that I should look at for 3D modeling? When you are processing your models locally do you need a dedicated computer or can you still use your computer for other tasks without it being too slow from processing your model?

Are there any pre-mission and mission packages for created orthomosaic photos that will allow you to fly a large area, but it breaks the large area into smaller areas that allow you to maintain visual of the UAS?

The software packages that I am aware of are the following: DroneDeploy, Pix4D, and Drone2map. Are there other packages you recommend? I have tried the DroneDeploy trial and was very pleased with how user friendly it is, but I was not impressed with the 3D model I created. To be fair to DroneDeploy, I did not have the best photos and the building I was trying to model has large overhangs that I think most would have trouble modeling.

Any knowledge you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
GunterCB
 
Litchi would be great for pre-mission as it allows for offline mission planning. Should help with some of the other things you have mentioned, as well.
 
Stones, Thanks for the reply. I think I am going to download the Litchi trail and try it out.

Thanks!
 

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