Mapping software for low AGL flights

[Morris Enyeart]

I am conducting drone beach litter surveys and need to fly my P4P at ~9 feet AGL set to take interval photos 2/second. I cant use DroneDeploy or Litchi because of the low AGL requirement so I fly the P4P manually in GPS mode. However when the wind is bl;owing it makes it hard to fly at a consistent AGL height.

My flight segments are divided into 100 meter lengths on the beach with lines 4 meters apart up to 30 meters each side of the high tide line.

Does anyone know of software that can map below 10 feet AGL?

 

[ArrUnTuS]

I am conducting drone beach litter surveys and need to fly my P4P at ~9 feet AGL set to take interval photos 2/second. I cant use DroneDeploy or Litchi because of the low AGL requirement so I fly the P4P manually in GPS mode. However when the wind is bl;owing it makes it hard to fly at a consistent AGL height.

My flight segments are divided into 100 meter lengths on the beach with lines 4 meters apart up to 30 meters each side of the high tide line.

Does anyone know of software that can map below 10 feet AGL?

I think there is no limit of height in principle. The problem is rather the problems that programs have when processing images of a very uniform ground. If the program is not able to take keypoints from photos because they are all very similar due to the terrain, in this case sand, is when problems appear.

Anyway, nine feet isn't flying too low. Precisely to solve these problems when processing images it is recommended to raise the height and increase overlap.

 

[Morris Enyeart]

Thanks for the response. The photography at 9 feet is good, so far I have covered 4 miles of the beach and uploaded the photos with litter to a zooniverse account maintained by The Plastic Tide. We have tried increasing the height going as high as 15 meters and increasing the overlap, but the resolution is not quite a good as we need. We are recording bits of plastic down to .5cm for our research. The photography at 6-9 feet is good, so far I have covered 4 miles of the beach and uploaded the photos with litter to a zooniverse account maintained by The Plastic Tide.

 

[B_Dawson]

I haven't actually tried running a mission that low but I just checked DJI GSPro and it will allow you to put in 5 meters on a survey mission. A little higher than you are looking for but maybe a little better than the other options.

This looks like a very cool project you are working on. Tagging Stateside - US Beaches now live!

 

[Morris Enyeart]

Thanks for the reply. I was originally flying at 5 meters but the resolution was not as good as I wanted. When the photos are uploaded to zooniverse each photo is enlarged and then split into 20 photos for tagging so I need very good resolution.

 

[ArrUnTuS]

Interesting project and laudable goal. I didn't understand why do a survey of a beach at such low altitude. Now it's clear

I don't use DJI, but I tried one of my drones, very similar to the P4 camera, and the camera takes 1.3 photos/s and It don't recommend to go below 5 meters at a speed of 1m/s. The GSD is 0.15cm/pix. More than 1.5mm/pix resolution would you need?

 

[Morris Enyeart]

Thanks for the settings, I try those settings.

 

[seal56drone]

Did you find any software to control the drone at 9ft agl? Shame Litchi doesn't let you go that low (or DJI Go4)

 

[Morris Enyeart]

No, so I just continue to fly it manually.

 

[Pe9999]

Photo taken with dji drone has the GPS data, any commercial photogrammetry software can use it for reconstruction.

 

[bjk896]

We are just learning it but Dronedeploy do recommend more height - more height and what they are producing with far higher resolution, are maps of the area created from strip runs. It may take a bit more time for processing but 2.5 cm/pixel gives you a pretty good lok at a gum wrapper

 

[lou101]

I am conducting drone beach litter surveys and need to fly my P4P at ~9 feet AGL set to take interval photos 2/second. I cant use DroneDeploy or Litchi because of the low AGL requirement so I fly the P4P manually in GPS mode. However when the wind is bl;owing it makes it hard to fly at a consistent AGL height.

My flight segments are divided into 100 meter lengths on the beach with lines 4 meters apart up to 30 meters each side of the high tide line.

Does anyone know of software that can map below 10 feet AGL?

I found this beta program called Hammer (Precise & Automated Flights, with DJI drones | Hammer) that would probably work for you. It allows you to set up low flights with overlap. I'm using it to do low level (10 Ft) parking lot inspections.