Data share

[sheartab]

Greetings!
I work in the Arch/Engineering design industry and I ran into an issue recently and I would like to pick your collective brains. We use Pix4D and P4v2 drones to map our active construction projects with great success- with one issue. I have a desktop subscription to Pix4D, and I cannot share my data easily with our design teams. My question to you folks is this: Are there other alternatives out there that would allow our team to share data in read-only format? Pix4D Cloud sounds like the best option for us, however before we make the jump I wanted to explore other options.

Our designers would benefit from a cloud-based solution that allows them to inspect, navigate, and measure the mapped datasets.

 

[Recoveryone]

This is the area where mapping software falls on its face, but its also where they make their money. Right off the top I would say your company needs to look into an enterprise level account (at this level will allow multi users). This is the most expensive level of mapping software (10k + per year on average), for the most popular software programs the pricing would be about the same, so if your comfortable with Pix4D I would stick with it and just upgrade to the level your company needs

 

[BigAl07]

One of my clients use (or they used to I have not asked recently) the Enterprise level of Hammar Flights Ltd. They could stitch, manipulate the data, and share it easily but I haven't worked with that client in over a year.

This company was well known for their Hammar360 program which was more or less "orphaned" when the company switched gears away from their FREE processing to a more Enterprise route. Can't blame them at all.

Drone Mapping Software | 4D Structural Inspections | Hammer Missions

Hammer Missions provides a versatile drone flight planning app and data processing software for 3D Mapping, building inspections, surveys and a variety of other use-cases. Our software helps drone businesses and enterprise UAV teams collect and analyze drone data for 3D infrastructure surveys &...

www.hammermissions.com

 

[R Martin]

Greetings!
I work in the Arch/Engineering design industry and I ran into an issue recently and I would like to pick your collective brains. We use Pix4D and P4v2 drones to map our active construction projects with great success- with one issue. I have a desktop subscription to Pix4D, and I cannot share my data easily with our design teams. My question to you folks is this: Are there other alternatives out there that would allow our team to share data in read-only format? Pix4D Cloud sounds like the best option for us, however before we make the jump I wanted to explore other options.

Our designers would benefit from a cloud-based solution that allows them to inspect, navigate, and measure the mapped datasets.

What exactly are you trying to share? If you want to grant access to your DTM/DSM/Ortho try Sharepoint. You can upload the data and send out a download link to the people that need it. Likewise, you can restrict access to those who do not need it. If the data is georeferenced then the engineers/architects will need to be working in the same coordinate system (a lot of them don't have a clue about this).
If you want a paid solution then you can add the Cloud license that Pix4D switched to this cycle. Personally, I do everything on Sharepoint because we don't share work with many entities (most of our data is considered sensitive/confidential). That way I have complete control and a paper trail on who exactly has the datasets.

 

[sheartab]

What exactly are you trying to share? If you want to grant access to your DTM/DSM/Ortho try Sharepoint.

This could work for sure for ortho photos, great tip.

 

[clolsonus]

Use case is always the big driver. For us we gave up on drone deploy even though it stitched our forest & field maps better than pix4d because collaborators couldn't annotate shared maps without paying for a full seat for them. We wanted one person to make the maps (me) and other subject matter experts to be able to hunt through the maps and annotate them. In the end we ran into several more show stopping (or at least show deflating) issues with both pix4d and drone deploy and we ended up building some of our own tools. There are pluses and minuses to that too. Our use case is hunting through low altitude forest (and crop) surveys (which are often extremely hard to stitch successfully!) looking for needles in a hay stack. Many of our needles are well up the tree trunks and into the canopy so even if we did get a successful stitch with a commercial mapping tool, the thing we are looking for would often be complete mush or completely missing in the orthophoto. For us the 3d is super cool, but even less detailed than the orthophoto. Lots of fun!

 

[Ajkm]

You might take a look at Measure Ground Control.

 

[Kristina Fowler]

You might take a look at Measure Ground Control.

This looks like an interesting alternative. Out of curiosity, I just set up a free account with Measure Ground Control and uploaded some old ortho images. Here's the automated response I got: "Images for the project XXXXXXXX have been successfully submitted to Pix4D and will be ready to view in 45 minutes."

 

[John Githens]

Greetings!
I work in the Arch/Engineering design industry and I ran into an issue recently and I would like to pick your collective brains. We use Pix4D and P4v2 drones to map our active construction projects with great success- with one issue. I have a desktop subscription to Pix4D, and I cannot share my data easily with our design teams. My question to you folks is this: Are there other alternatives out there that would allow our team to share data in read-only format? Pix4D Cloud sounds like the best option for us, however before we make the jump I wanted to explore other options.

Our designers would benefit from a cloud-based solution that allows them to inspect, navigate, and measure the mapped datasets.

View attachment 2719

Yet another question of balance. I prefer to have as much local control as possible over processing and sharing. I use a desktop subscription to Pix4Dmapper, and set up a DropBox account specifically for access by my primary, multi-year client. While the user interface of DropBox can be challenging, it hasn't been a show-stopper. Of course there are other file sharing services to choose from. My client was already familiar with DropBox.

Given your industry area, others who may be opening Pix4D files could try Quick Terrain Reader, Virtual Surveyor, or CloudCompare. Learning curves vary, as does cost/month .

 

[R Martin]

This looks like an interesting alternative. Out of curiosity, I just set up a free account with Measure Ground Control and uploaded some old ortho images. Here's the automated response I got: "Images for the project XXXXXXXX have been successfully submitted to Pix4D and will be ready to view in 45 minutes."

LOL. Pix4D is pretty much an industry standard. ESRI used the Pix4D engine to create their own platform for ArcGIS Desktop.

 

[Ajkm]

LOL. Pix4D is pretty much an industry standard. ESRI used the Pix4D engine to create their own platform for ArcGIS Desktop.

This looks like an interesting alternative. Out of curiosity, I just set up a free account with Measure Ground Control and uploaded some old ortho images. Here's the automated response I got: "Images for the project XXXXXXXX have been successfully submitted to Pix4D and will be ready to view in 45 minutes."

Yep. I don't see that as an issue. There are few setups better and the MGC approach is by far the best front end in my view. They have really effective and fast customer support, which in my view is one of the most important factors in selecting a platform. Plus the financial side of it really can't be beaten - who, except well-established and will-financed commercial enterprises, can afford the likes of DD at this point?

 

[R Martin]

Yep. I don't see that as an issue. There are few setups better and the MGC approach is by far the best front end in my view. They have really effective and fast customer support, which in my view is one of the most important factors in selecting a platform. Plus the financial side of it really can't be beaten - who, except well-established and will-financed commercial enterprises, can afford the likes of DD at this point?

DD is only cost effective if you are a smaller organization that does not process a lot of jobs with control (or at least that is how it used to be. I don't keep up with the). It was obvious to me that Pix4D was the solution that was a best fit for our organization a few years back. This year they became more affordable by basically cutting the price for Pix4DMapper in half after they split their cloud service off into its own package.
If you are able to meet the hardware requirements (which should also be considered in the purchasing decision), then it is a great solution.

 

[Dave Pitman]

One of my clients use (or they used to I have not asked recently) the Enterprise level of Hammar Flights Ltd. They could stitch, manipulate the data, and share it easily but I haven't worked with that client in over a year.

This company was well known for their Hammar360 program which was more or less "orphaned" when the company switched gears away from their FREE processing to a more Enterprise route. Can't blame them at all.

Drone Mapping Software | 4D Structural Inspections | Hammer Missions

Hammer Missions provides a versatile drone flight planning app and data processing software for 3D Mapping, building inspections, surveys and a variety of other use-cases. Our software helps drone businesses and enterprise UAV teams collect and analyze drone data for 3D infrastructure surveys &...

www.hammermissions.com

Hi Allen, I think you meant "Hanger" and not "Hammer"

The Hammer crew is currently flight app only.

Hangar Technology

hangar.com

 

[BigAl07]

Hi Allen, I think you meant "Hanger" and not "Hammer"

The Hammer crew is currently flight app only.

Hangar Technology

hangar.com

Yes sir I DEF meant Hangar. Very good catch thank you. But there is an Enterprise (or there was) for Hangar that allowed cross platform sharing etc.

 

[dgnfly]

One of my clients use (or they used to I have not asked recently) the Enterprise level of Hammar Flights Ltd. They could stitch, manipulate the data, and share it easily but I haven't worked with that client in over a year.

This company was well known for their Hammar360 program which was more or less "orphaned" when the company switched gears away from their FREE processing to a more Enterprise route. Can't blame them at all.

Drone Mapping Software | 4D Structural Inspections | Hammer Missions

Hammer Missions provides a versatile drone flight planning app and data processing software for 3D Mapping, building inspections, surveys and a variety of other use-cases. Our software helps drone businesses and enterprise UAV teams collect and analyze drone data for 3D infrastructure surveys &...

www.hammermissions.com

Looks good. But, like all the others, no support for the M300 RTK (yet).

 

[dgnfly]

Yes sir I DEF meant Hangar. Very good catch thank you. But there is an Enterprise (or there was) for Hangar that allowed cross platform sharing etc.

Ah, a bit confused by this. Hanger says:



So what, they only want to work with end-users? No mention of what drones are supported.

 

[Dave Pitman]

So what, they only want to work with end-users? No mention of what drones are supported.

Hanger may be a closeted orphan right now. It started out with a vision and was bought up by VC rich AirMap with visions of grandeur, no doubt. The problem is that that vision probably lacks detail and direction. This is somewhat standard from what I've observed. VCs buy stuff without really knowing what they are doing many times. And, a once working company, ceases to exist.

I don't know that this is the fate of Hanger. But it wouldn't be surprising. Hanger is most well known, to me anyway, for providing an app and online platform to aggregate and share 360 panoramas. And played a significant role in the California wildfires a couple of years ago. That's probably when they were purchased and put in the closet.