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first published week of: 07/10/2017
Using consumer drones for geospatial mapping is a skill set readily available to any competent drone pilot. Drone mapping Mount Coot-tha Quarry in Brisbane was one of the first mapping projects we undertook. At DroneAce, we have been trailing the consumer grade DJI MavicPro as a viable drone mapping platforms and set out to ascertain the quality of images acquired and how accurate autonomous flight control apps are at capturing an image sequence for later use in photogrammetry software. This was one of the first autonomous drone mapping missions undertaken having trailed a number of flight control apps with the MavicPro on small open fields with a variety of results.
In this instance we used DroneDeploy as the autonomous control app and made the mistake of having the camera control in DroneDeploy set to automatic which resulted in overexposed images. However DroneDeploy was able to successfully captured 224 jpg images over a 7 minute period covering an area of 16 hectares. This was with the drone flying at15m/s at 70M AGL, with 60% Sidelap and 70% Frontlap. A similar drone mapping project was undertaken at the White Hill Quarry in Brisbane.
To create accurate survey grade results with a consumer drone, it is necessary to employ ground control points (GCP) throughout the target area to be mapped. As the aim of this mapping project was to gain experience in controlling the drone via DroneDeploy and not survey grade accuracy, no GCP were used. Read full story at DroneAce…