Drone mapping (also known as drone surveying) has become a huge part of many industries such as land surveying, construction, agriculture, etc and it’s an efficient application to obtain accurate data at low cost and field time.
The thing I love about drone mapping is that any person who owns a drone with some considerable performance can start drone mapping. Actually, almost every modern drone these days can be used for drone mapping. You just need to have drone mapping software (Dronedeploy, Pix4D, DJI Terra, etc) for flight planning and post-processing. Also, there are different types of drones (ex: RTK drones) that are specially made for advanced drone mapping.
What is Drone Mapping?
Simply drone mapping is the process of puzzling hundreds or even thousands of drone aerial images and creating a map that perfectly reflects the geographic area. Usually, the images that go into the drone mapping process differ from regular drone images. They are geometrically corrected and lens distortions, camera tilt, and elevation changes are fixed.
How is Drone Mapping done?
There are three common steps in Drone Mapping which are Flight planning, Automated field flight, and Post process. All these steps are managed and executed by the drone mapping software (Dronedeploy, Pix4D, DJI Terra, etc). So let’s have a brief explanation of each step.
Step 1: Flight Planning.
This step is all about planning and setting up the project to execute in the field. It’s better to do this step before visiting the field because if you planned and set up the flight before the field visit, the only thing you just have to do in the field is to execute the pre-set project.
In the flight planning stage, you need to set up the mapping project in your drone mapping software (Dronedeploy, Pix4D, DJI Terra, etc).
- First, you create a new project on your drone mapping software.
- Then enter the GPD location or address and visit the location through the software.
- Then cover the expected mapping area with the flight grid. ( The automated flight would be performed along these grids)
- Then set up settings (Flight Altitude, Front overlaps, side overlaps, flight speed) according to your preference. Below are some brief explanations about some common and important settings.
Flight Altitude: This value affects the map resolution (inches per pixel). Low flight altitude would give you a high-resolution map but sometimes low flight altitude would cause motion blur, identical images, and mess up the post-processing. The ideal value for flight altitude is 200ft.
Front overlaps and Side overlaps: Front/ Side overlaps mean how much each captured images going to overlap with each other. This value is so important for better post-proceccing. The ideal value for front overlaps is 70% and for side overlaps it’s 60%.
Step 2: Automated field flight.
Once you’re done with the step which is planning and setting up the project, you can head to the field with your drone and the smart device.
- Then connect the drone to the device through the software.
- Then execute the project. Once you execute the project, the drone would take off automatically and start automated flight along the grid path and capture images for the post-process of drone mapping.
- Once the project is done, the drone would return to the starting point and you have successfully finished this step.
Step 3: Post-processing.
Once you are a drone with the automated flight field, you have all the captured images on your smart device. So the next step is to upload those images to the drone mapping software for post-processing. Simply in the Post-processing, the captured images go through the drone mapping software algorithms and match those pieces and construct the whole map view.
After you upload images to the software, it would take a few hours to construct a complete and high-quality map.
Drone Mapping applications in different industries.
Land Surveying.
Drone mapping has become so important in the land surveying industry for obtaining accurate measurements and mapping at low field time and low risk. By using drone mapping in land surveys, topographical surveys could be done approximately in 24 hours.
Construction.
Drone mapping is usually used in the construction industry to plan the project, obtain accurate measurements and track the process of construction. Drone mapping is often done on the site per week just to track the project’s progression and it could be shared with the investors and other parties easily even though they live overseas.
Agriculture.
Farmers use drone mapping in day-to-day life just to have an overview look at large areas of farming and for crop health tracking. Using drone mapping in huge farming has made it possible and practical to analyze farming almost every day with less manpower, and low cost in less time.
Urban Planning and Development.
Development projects in dense and complex urban areas require concerted planning which consumes a lot of time and cost to collect data for that. But thanks to drone mapping, the industry is capable of collecting large amounts of up-to-date data in a short period of time and with far less human power. Those maps give a detailed view to planners of the existing social and environmental conditions of the sites which are needs to be considered in different scenarios.
Waste management.
The waste management industry was able to do a good job using drone mapping by deeply analyzing the geographic features of the area such as the land slope, and environmental conditions, and doing required calculations with accurate data provided by drone mapping.
Advantages of Drone Mapping.
1. Optimized field time.
Drone mapping constructs 2D and 3D maps with accurate measurements, features, and environmental details just in a few hours. Because of the flexibility of drone mapping software, you can plan the project from anywhere and can execute the project as soon as you entered the field. So that way you can reduce and optimize your field time.
2. Low cost and less manpower.
If you have a drone with a fair amount of specs (Almost every modern drone in the drone market) the only cost you have to bear is just the drone mapping software price. And those drone mapping software prices are reasonable compared with the service they provide. Once you purchased or renewed the drone mapping software, you can map an unlimited amount of maps within the renewed time period.
When talking about the manpower required for drone mapping is down for a single person because the drone mapping software is doing the whole hard work of the process. Almost every day to day smart device users and PC users are capable of planning and executing projects using the drone mapping software.
3. Collect accurate area data.
Drone mapping software makes it possible for users to calculate area, volume, slope, and many measurements with just a few clicks and drags on the map. And those measurements are so accurate compared with old mapping techniques. (horizontal accuracy is 5-10 cm and the vertical accuracy is 5-15 cm).
4. Safety & Map inaccessible areas.
Because the drone does the mapping process aerially, it can map inaccessible areas easily, avoiding almost every challenge that traditional mapping technologies face in mapping those areas. Also thanks to drone mapping technology, workers don’t need to be in risky environments for the mapping process as they used to.
5. Easy to share data.
Constructed drone maps can be shared easily through the internet with just a few clicks. So constructed drone maps can be shared with the investors and other parties easily to discuss and take decisions and those parties can track the progress of the site even though they are overseas and impractical to visit the site daily.