Commercial Mapping of Roofs and Buildings

[PhantomFandom]

Hello everyone,

I just came over here from the Phantom forum, as suggested by Big Al. Thanks Al for pointing me to the right place.

I am experienced with drones but mostly for personal pleasure. I do have my Part 107 and would like to see how I can use my drones more in a commercial aspect.

So now my questions. I will search through the posts as well to see what good information is there already. My apologies in advance if someone has asked these questions before.

One of my clients is an engineering firm. As part of their business they need to do roof surveys of large buildings like schools. I spoke to them and it seems they currently do all this work manually and it sometimes takes them up to 2 days of manual labor on the roof to get all the pictures and measurements they need. I would like to see how I can offer them drone services to do the same thing. It could save them the time and effort of doing it manually and perhaps make it safer for their personnel as well. I think the biggest selling point would be if the entire process can be made faster and/or cheaper overall.

Can you give me some insight into the process? A few questions I have to start. Sorry if it is a lot to ask.

• Do you find that the overall net cost can be cheaper than doing it manually?
• I assume that the process must be faster with a drone and the correct mapping software. Is that true?
• How do the online mapping services work? Do they do a good job? I feel it is a better way to get my toes wet rather than investing in dedicated software up front. Which ones have you had experience with and which would you recommend?
• What is the accuracy of a Phantom 4 Pro with these mapping services, without using RTK? Is it sufficient for engineering needs?
• What is the end product after the drone footage is processed? My customer's end result needs to be an AutoCAD drawing of the roof. How close do we get with mapping software?

Thanks in advance. I would appreciate any guidance you can provide. They will be letting me go out with them on a project later this month and I want to be prepared to give them a sampling of what I can do for them with a drone. They are fully aware that I am new to it and I will be doing this job for them for free. I just want to make sure that they see the benefit of proceeding down this path. A good first impression is always important even though they know me very well already. You never know what you don't know, so I would like to get started in the right direction and at least know what questions to ask and what to look for in a mapping service.

 

[Outta Control]

Welcome and thank BigAl for dragging you here. Here are some of my responses to your questions.

Do keep in mind some of the responses may not direct address the question but will give you a better perspective.

• "Do you find that the overall net cost can be cheaper than doing it manually?"
• Absolutely, but cost should not be the primary driving factor in the use of a sUAS. It is about SAFETY. Ask your client about the number of their workers having the potential or have been injured while doing work on the roof. The use of a sUAS is at least 5X better and safer for roof inspection. I can't go into further in explaining this but employee safety is paramount.
• I assume that the process must be faster with a drone and the correct mapping software. Is that true?
• Yes, it is much more efficient to use a drone. Mapping software are great but don't invest too much into them. You are just wanting an automated flight control.
• How do the online mapping services work? Do they do a good job? I feel it is a better way to get my toes wet rather than investing in dedicated software up front. Which ones have you had experience with and which would you recommend?
• Read above. Cloud services are there to make things simpler for a price but what I have found is that I only needed their automated flight control.
• What is the accuracy of a Phantom 4 Pro with these mapping services, without using RTK? Is it sufficient for engineering needs?
• In my experience and perspective with the P4P, they are a phenomenal entry to mid-level mapping aircraft. Depending on what you are mapping and how large it is, you may not necessarily need the expense of an RTK.
• What is the end product after the drone footage is processed? My customer's end result needs to be an AutoCAD drawing of the roof. How close do we get with mapping software?
• Cloud mapping services (Photogrammetry) are getting to be more and more accurate versus the accuracy of LIDaR.

A very important take away from this are the facts that:
1) If survey mapping is what you are after, then work with a licensed surveyor.
2) Most roof inspection will not require a licensed surveyor.
3) It take at least a decade or more to be proficient in survey mapping let alone Photogrammetry.
4) To be considered as a major survey data collector, you would need to learn, operate, and interpret Lidar. Even in 2018, most survey company look at Lidar as the standard for mapping, as the Photogrammetry guys (mapping with a RGB camera) do have a place in it but not taken highly as an accurate technique.

 

[PhantomFandom]

Welcome and thank BigAl for dragging you here. Here are some of my responses to your questions.

Do keep in mind some of the responses may not direct address the question but will give you a better perspective.

• "Do you find that the overall net cost can be cheaper than doing it manually?"
• Absolutely, but cost should not be the primary driving factor in the use of a sUAS. It is about SAFETY. Ask your client about the number of their workers having the potential or have been injured while doing work on the roof. The use of a sUAS is at least 5X better and safer for roof inspection. I can't go into further in explaining this but employee safety is paramount.
• I assume that the process must be faster with a drone and the correct mapping software. Is that true?
• Yes, it is much more efficient to use a drone. Mapping software are great but don't invest too much into them. You are just wanting an automated flight control.
• How do the online mapping services work? Do they do a good job? I feel it is a better way to get my toes wet rather than investing in dedicated software up front. Which ones have you had experience with and which would you recommend?
• Read above. Cloud services are there to make things simpler for a price but what I have found is that I only needed their automated flight control.
• What is the accuracy of a Phantom 4 Pro with these mapping services, without using RTK? Is it sufficient for engineering needs?
• In my experience and perspective with the P4P, they are a phenomenal entry to mid-level mapping aircraft. Depending on what you are mapping and how large it is, you may not necessarily need the expense of an RTK.
• What is the end product after the drone footage is processed? My customer's end result needs to be an AutoCAD drawing of the roof. How close do we get with mapping software?
• Cloud mapping services (Photogrammetry) are getting to be more and more accurate versus the accuracy of LIDaR.

A very important take away from this are the facts that:
1) If survey mapping is what you are after, then work with a licensed surveyor.
2) Most roof inspection will not require a licensed surveyor.
3) It take at least a decade or more to be proficient in survey mapping let alone Photogrammetry.
4) To be considered as a major survey data collector, you would need to learn, operate, and interpret Lidar. Even in 2018, most survey company look at Lidar as the standard for mapping, as the Photogrammetry guys (mapping with a RGB camera) do have a place in it but not taken highly as an accurate technique.

THANK YOU !!

My needs right now are definitely not in the realm of surveying. I will know more once I get out there the first time, but it is basically enough detail and accuracy for this engineering firm to give their client a quote on doing the roof work. The same personnel who does this manually now will be out there with me, so they will be the ones signing off on any photos/drawings that become part of the final product. As I mentioned, I don't know right now what the proper questions are but I will know more soon. I just needed some guidance on what to do to get started.

I have the luxury of doing this for someone I know and they are very willing to work with me as I get adept at it. There is nothing worse than getting someone to do a job and they grossly mis-represent their skill and experience. I see it all the time in the IT world. They will take any job for a buck. For me, my reputation is what matters. That is why they know exactly what this is going in; a training run for me to see how I may be able to help them in the future.

My apologies in advance if I do come back with some "stupid questions". I thank you again for taking the time to answer my initial post.

 

[Moosewax]

THANK YOU !!

My needs right now are definitely not in the realm of surveying. I will know more once I get out there the first time, but it is basically enough detail and accuracy for this engineering firm to give their client a quote on doing the roof work. The same personnel who does this manually now will be out there with me, so they will be the ones signing off on any photos/drawings that become part of the final product. As I mentioned, I don't know right now what the proper questions are but I will know more soon. I just needed some guidance on what to do to get started.

I have the luxury of doing this for someone I know and they are very willing to work with me as I get adept at it. There is nothing worse than getting someone to do a job and they grossly mis-represent their skill and experience. I see it all the time in the IT world. They will take any job for a buck. For me, my reputation is what matters. That is why they know exactly what this is going in; a training run for me to see how I may be able to help them in the future.

My apologies in advance if I do come back with some "stupid questions". I thank you again for taking the time to answer my initial post.

Photogrammetry is great for bare earth/hard surfaces however LiDAR gets you much better defined corners in your 3D data, something even the best photogrammetry still struggles with from what I have seen.

We sometimes map cross sections of roads and even our tightest photogrammetry involves time consuming manual massaging of the data to determine the top and bottom of curves versus with LiDAR the process can be mostly automated with confidence.

Photogrammetry and LiDAR tend to complement each other, some things can be done by both, and each have their unique strengths and abilities depending on what data you are after

 

[PhantomFandom]

Photogrammetry is great for bare earth/hard surfaces however LiDAR gets you much better defined corners in your 3D data, something even the best photogrammetry still struggles with from what I have seen.

We sometimes map cross sections of roads and even our tightest photogrammetry involves time consuming manual massaging of the data to determine the top and bottom of curves versus with LiDAR the process can be mostly automated with confidence.

Photogrammetry and LiDAR tend to complement each other, some things can be done by both, and each have their unique strengths and abilities depending on what data you are after

Thank you for the response. It looks like I will be doing my first test run next week so I may have more questions after that.