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Learning about mapping

SWA Pilot

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Joined
Nov 28, 2020
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Age
61
Location
Hendersonville NC
Trying to get survey job using my inspire 1. I need to get my inspire 1 skills flying autonomous programs up to speed quick. Other than just go fly.....any suggestions? If you‘re wondering who would hire this tool?....I’m not the only guy they are using. And I don’t have the job. Trying to use this as a learning “figure this out job”. If you’re wondering if you want this job....check it out in Droners.io. Location....middle of Arkansas....with 11 month commitment....at Droner.io rates. Still interested?


Disclaimer. I’m new to forum...and commercial drones. Highly experienced flying manned aircraft. I’ve got my 107 license....but not for very long. I’m insured. So I meet all the requirements except familiarity with grid autonomous flying and mapping. Which I know is a big LIMFAC....but I’ve got 2 weeks to figure it out. I’ve followed some strings on the forum and videos on utube...so I know there are some great discussions....Pix 4d vs mapper desktop, computer handling capacity, flying apps and such. oh....and I just got my inspire 1. Mav air 2 experience until now. 900 acre total job. Broken down in 200 acre sections. I’m not doing the photo processing.

Just some general time saving thoughts would be appreciated. Can I pull this off using a IPAD (256GB)?
 
Welcome to the forum. My only suggestion is be VERY careful about how your work/market your services. Here in North Carolina you can not use Survey unless you are licensed with the State of NC in that trade. It seems like a not so big deal but when you get that letter and associated fines it will be a VERY big deal. Just make sure whatever state you're working in doesn't have the same requirements as NC does.

I work in Hendersonville often. I'm over in Haywood County.
 
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I've done a lot of mapping with the Inspire 2, one thing, the inspire isn't an RTK drone so your accuracy isn't going to be up to survey standards. I always used Drone Deploy and worked with the surveyors on the job site. We never claimed our mappings met survey accuracy, however the surveyors used our mappings extensively.
Get hooked up with licensed surveyors and you'll do ok. As BigA said, be very careful about referring to your mappings as surveys.
What mapping is good for is volume reports and outputting to Auto Cad for the engineering staff.
 
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If you have an iOS device running your DJI app, Map Pilot is easy to use, free, easy to create grid missions; Drone Deploy is also free and even easier to use. Once you have all the images, If you don't have the software to stitch them together (ie.g Pix4D), and a powerful processor to run it, try MapsMadeEasy which will charge you a per project fee to do it for you and deliver an othrophoto as well as a DEM and other products. If you don't have control points, the result will not be accurately positioned.
 
Noted. The job is actually a construction progress job. Not really surveying.
Mapping and surveying are two different animals. One requires you to be a state certified RPLS in most states before you can call the end product survey grade. Otherwise, its just a map. Whether or not it is an accurate map is another thing entirely. Generally, in order to nail down accuracy you are going to need some form of site control. You can either set your own with a GPS unit or Aeropoints or hire an RPLs to set control points for you. It is not as hard as it might sound, though it does require an investment either way you go. A decent Trimble with a mapping package will run you about 14K. Aeropoints are available for around 6300US without software. An RPLS is going to charge by the job based upon what you specify.
 
Welcome to the forum. My only suggestion is be VERY careful about how your work/market your services. Here in North Carolina you can not use Survey unless you are licensed with the State of NC in that trade. It seems like a not so big deal but when you get that letter and associated fines it will be a VERY big deal. Just make sure whatever state you're working in doesn't have the same requirements as NC does.

I work in Hendersonville often. I'm over in Haywood County.
Same in WV, also we are not technically allowed to "map" either. I call them orthomosaics "pictures" for lack of a better term.
 
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If you have an iOS device running your DJI app, Map Pilot is easy to use, free, easy to create grid missions; Drone Deploy is also free and even easier to use. Once you have all the images, If you don't have the software to stitch them together (ie.g Pix4D), and a powerful processor to run it, try MapsMadeEasy which will charge you a per project fee to do it for you and deliver an othrophoto as well as a DEM and other products. If you don't have control points, the result will not be accurately positioned.
I use the same setup too. I've dabbled in stitching myself and found I can generally do a much better job using WebOMD and fooling with settings, but MME works great.
 
Trying to get survey job using my inspire 1. I need to get my inspire 1 skills flying autonomous programs up to speed quick. Other than just go fly.....any suggestions? If you‘re wondering who would hire this tool?....I’m not the only guy they are using. And I don’t have the job. Trying to use this as a learning “figure this out job”. If you’re wondering if you want this job....check it out in Droners.io. Location....middle of Arkansas....with 11 month commitment....at Droner.io rates. Still interested?


Disclaimer. I’m new to forum...and commercial drones. Highly experienced flying manned aircraft. I’ve got my 107 license....but not for very long. I’m insured. So I meet all the requirements except familiarity with grid autonomous flying and mapping. Which I know is a big LIMFAC....but I’ve got 2 weeks to figure it out. I’ve followed some strings on the forum and videos on utube...so I know there are some great discussions....Pix 4d vs mapper desktop, computer handling capacity, flying apps and such. oh....and I just got my inspire 1. Mav air 2 experience until now. 900 acre total job. Broken down in 200 acre sections. I’m not doing the photo processing.

Just some general time saving thoughts would be appreciated. Can I pull this off using a IPAD (256GB)?
I replied on a couple of comments below, but I'd like to throw my thoughts down here for you. Here is how I would approach it myself and please if you don't know what some of these things are, don't worry...

-What does the customer want exactly? Planimetric? DSM? DTM? Orthomosaic? 3D Point cloud? Do they want volumetric calculations? Do they just want to track the progress of construction? Realizing 200 Acres is an extremely large area for an inspire to cover and process depending on the flight level (detail desired.)

I did a weekly project on 500 acres for a customer which lasted over 2 years, and what they wanted was construction phase monitoring... so I ended up shooting video of each area of interest in short segments. I can go into more detail should you ask.

Don't fall into the trap that you need expensive software to do what you want. Get the job, then figure it out as you go. Work closely with your customer and be honest with them and they will treat you right. In the end, you will gain tremendous experience and the next time it will be much easier!!

Not sure it did, but hope this helps. Good luck!

(I used Inspire 2 with X4S camera)
 
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All good inputs. I don’t know much more about the job than I originally said...construction progress for a utility company. Some non disclosure will follow so may have limited communication ability. I think I’ve got the drone systems covered. 2 inspire 1s with x3 and x5 cameras. 8 batteries. Plus a Mavic air 2 for small stuff. Might get a phantom 4 if I get the job. Again thanks for the help.
 
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About the Inspire 1 & 2. As I stated in June I finished a 2 1/2 year project at UC Merced College. One problem we had with the Inspire was battery contacts, including one of the Inspire 1s falling out of the sky because the battery disconnected. It was due to poor contact on the connectors. We started cleaning all the connectors with an eraser about every couple of weeks and no more problems. I had one of the batteries on my inspire 2 disconnect in flight, fortunately the second battery got me home. Also keep the landing gear mechanism cleaned and lubed.

Other than that the Inspire is an awesome drone.
 
Speaking of Airline pilots, I know you guys got hit pretty hard with this pandemic. I wish you the best of luck, and hopefully this will end soon and you guys can get back to work.
Good advice. Having a backup battery would be nice. Maybe in the future.

If you are going to do mapping or cover any large areas, you will need plenty of batteries. I always had eight pairs of batteries for the I2 and that isn't cheap at about 350 a pair. Every time I mapped the campus and that was once a week, I used five pair of batteries. When I would map the entire campus I used seven pair.
I may have been able to use fewer, but I always RTH at 70% discharged leaving that spare fuel if you will.
 
I’ve got a pretty good supply going. Just need to work on taking care of them.
The Inspire 1 has a rather limited flight time and it's going to be uphill getting through 900 acres.
Something with a better flight time would be my #1 recommendation.
The Phantom 4 pro is an excellent mapping drone to consider.
 
I was kind of leaning that way. Was thinking the p4 advanced might even be the best fit...I don’t really need the collision avoidance warnings (or annoying sounds if you will) when in close. Any thoughts on that? Range/flight time might be even slightly better.
 
I was kind of leaning that way. Was thinking the p4 advanced might even be the best fit...I don’t really need the collision avoidance warnings (or annoying sounds if you will) when in close. Any thoughts on that? Range/flight time might be even slightly better.
I'd like to add another bit. At an Engineering firm where I used to work, we had an eBee and did official survey grade mapping, etc. with it. Great tool for large areas, very efficient but expensive. There are many options for fixed wing drones at a relatively inexpensive cost if you look. Quads, etc are great for tight spaces and quick work, but 900 Acres falls into the category of fixed wing in my opinion. Careful, it is a deep rabbit hole. :)
 
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I’ve looked that way....resources become a LIMFAC real quick. Looked a senseFly ebee. Great loiter time, but not sure it has the overall flexibility I need at this point.
 
I was kind of leaning that way. Was thinking the p4 advanced might even be the best fit...I don’t really need the collision avoidance warnings (or annoying sounds if you will) when in close. Any thoughts on that? Range/flight time might be even slightly better.
The P4 Advanced is the same drone, same camera with a few unimportant things left out.
Any difference in flight time would be too small to notice.
 
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