What I've learned thanks to many of you.

[R.Perry]

I'm curious what Multivista branch you are speaking of. This morning I called Multivista in Canada (main office) and asked about using the Mavic if I was one of their francizes owners, they were very quick to say no way, min now is Inspire.

Besides having the drones, you must have a Matterport camera, SLR need to be full sensor cameras min Nikon D500.
As for the classes, Avion is hands on training, there is more flight time than classroom. Students are evaluated on flying ability, photography and number one safety.

I've been on three construction sites, clients were interested in mapping, video, and panos. None of the survey companies were using drones. So my opinion was based on what I have experienced, and I"m sure many out there have a great deal more experience than I do.

I just know if I wanted to get close to survey accuracy I needed good GCPs, once I had that we got pretty close. Volume reports according to engineering were spot on, or close enough for their purposes.

 

[adm_geomatics]

I'm curious what Multivista branch you are speaking of. This morning I called Multivista in Canada (main office) and asked about using the Mavic if I was one of their francizes owners, they were very quick to say no way, min now is Inspire.

Besides having the drones, you must have a Matterport camera, SLR need to be full sensor cameras min Nikon D500.
As for the classes, Avion is hands on training, there is more flight time than classroom. Students are evaluated on flying ability, photography and number one safety.

I've been on three construction sites, clients were interested in mapping, video, and panos. None of the survey companies were using drones. So my opinion was based on what I have experienced, and I"m sure many out there have a great deal more experience than I do.

I just know if I wanted to get close to survey accuracy I needed good GCPs, once I had that we got pretty close. Volume reports according to engineering were spot on, or close enough for their purposes.

I'm not sure about franchising as the Multivista I am familiar with is a national company owned by Hexagon. I obviously work with the Austin (Central Texas) group.

*I just looked them up and they are the same group.

 

[adm_geomatics]

Here's some pretty cool stuff coming up. I know DroneDeploy is looking into some of the same things.

LiDAR: what it is, and how it is useful for photogrammetry

LiDAR technology competes with, but also complements photogrammetry - this is how.

www.pix4d.com

 

[WildDoktor]

@R.Perry , I just wanted to say thanks; reading over what you've learned has taught me some things! ?

Specifically, panos. I've had my part 107 since Feb '17, but have never done a pano. I spent several hours yesterday (after reading this thread) researching what they are, what they're good for, and how to take and process them. This morning I started practicing.

I found your thread because I'll be taking some before/during/after photos and videos for a friend who does larger roofing projects, and I wanted some hints on what kind of questions I should ask him, and what kind of shots are "typical" for this kind of thing, since I've only really done cell tower, wind turbine, and a few dronebase roof jobs.

I also thank the rest of the contributors in this thread.

I feel much more confident about talking points now!

Panos. Who knew?? ?

 

[adm_geomatics]

Hey Dok. Panos are actually one of if not the most popular deliverable in our Project Management and client relations efforts. The number of them would be determined by the site but there's always at least two on our jobsites. AGL also is determined by the site but we typically run 225ft with a P4P.

As far as the overall set of deliverables there is almost always a map, then cardinal position progress photos, inspections, 2-4 360 panos and a 3-4 minute video.

 

[WildDoktor]

Thanks @chasco! That's great info...really concise, but packed with value.

When you say "360 pano", do you mean the type that's laid out horizontally, or the type that's in a sphere that they can roll around in a viewer?

 

[R.Perry]

We use the sphere and that seems to be preferred by my clients. I take panos from various altitudes based on the structures or lack of. Example would be a new site and no structures would be taken at 150 AGL, where one with 80 to 100 foot building would go 300 AGL. Average for me is 200 AGL. To me reality is what does my client want to see, and how does he or she want to see it.

 

[R.Perry]

Just curious, what was Multivista doing that you chose not to?

Been a while. Multivista was getting the work. I'm semi retired so this stated as something to keep me busy and out of my wife's hair.

 

[adm_geomatics]

Thanks @chasco! That's great info...really concise, but packed with value.

When you say "360 pano", do you mean the type that's laid out horizontally, or the type that's in a sphere that they can roll around in a viewer?

Both but primarily strips on the ground and spherical in the sky.

 

[adm_geomatics]

We use the sphere and that seems to be preferred by my clients. I take panos from various altitudes based on the structures or lack of. Example would be a new site and no structures would be taken at 150 AGL, where one with 80 to 100 foot building would go 300 AGL. Average for me is 200 AGL. To me reality is what does my client want to see, and how does he or she want to see it.

How low have you been able to fly and still get good stitching? Once I get to about 100ft AGL I start seeing poor matching beneath horizon. I am using Litchi or DroneDeploy. They both take 25 photos on 3 rows and one nadir.

 

[R.Perry]

How low have you been able to fly and still get good stitching? Once I get to about 100ft AGL I start seeing poor matching beneath horizon. I am using Litchi or DroneDeploy. They both take 25 photos on 3 rows and one nadir.

I like to be a minimum of 150 feet above the tallest object. This obviously depends on the drone and camera one is using. I'm now using the Inspire 2 with a 15mm lens. I have a job coming up on the 24th where I could only get a 200 foot clearance. There is one structure that is about 80 feet high. The client is mostly interested in volume and stock pile reports so I think I'll be alright. Problem is the site is right at the end of the runway for McClellan airport.
I was given a one hour window to do the flight and I need to verify with flight services when I'm finished.

 

[adm_geomatics]

I like to be a minimum of 150 feet above the tallest object. This obviously depends on the drone and camera one is using. I'm now using the Inspire 2 with a 15mm lens. I have a job coming up on the 24th where I could only get a 200 foot clearance. There is one structure that is about 80 feet high. The client is mostly interested in volume and stock pile reports so I think I'll be alright. Problem is the site is right at the end of the runway for McClellan airport.

View attachment 3083

That all makes sense. We usually pano at 225ft which is usually about 100ft above the tallest objects and gives us sub-1in/px resolution. For mapping against tall structure we run a typical 150-225ft grid and then do a 75ft on the structures. Sometimes we get closer for rooftop equipment.

 

[R.Perry]

At times on the UC Merced project they wanted closeups of roofs. That is how I got into this crazy business. I had a home inspection business and was using the drone for exterior roof inspections, it worked well enough to identify potential issues with a roof. Not only that it gave me full roof photo documentation of the roof.

 

[adm_geomatics]

At times on the UC Merced project they wanted closeups of roofs. That is how I got into this crazy business. I had a home inspection business and was using the drone for exterior roof inspections, it worked well enough to identify potential issues with a roof. Not only that it gave me full roof photo documentation of the roof.

Nice. I need to inspect our roof after a large hail storm... ?

 

[WildDoktor]

Nice. I need to inspect our roof after a large hail storm... ?

I was going to inspect our roof after a large hail storm earlier this year, but my friend's roofing company came out and didn't even need to get up on the roof to know it needed replacing! We got it replaced, and that guy gave us a discount in order to pay for me to do a few drone photo shoots for him on some of his upcoming high-profile jobs...which has turned into the reason I'm here asking questions! ?

BTW, thanks to you guys I've now tried 2 types of pano with my new-to-me mavic pro: the "hover in place, shoot, yaw to the right, shoot, yaw to the right, shoot" type of pano (portrait mode, 4:3, bracked x5 for each "shot", then merge each set of 5 in hdr, then merge the hdr's into a single wide shot, then color grade), and the automated 360 pano. Now working thru processing those. I have about a month to practice before his next big job, so I should be an "expert" by then! ?

 

[R.Perry]

I was going to inspect our roof after a large hail storm earlier this year, but my friend's roofing company came out and didn't even need to get up on the roof to know it needed replacing! We got it replaced, and that guy gave us a discount in order to pay for me to do a few drone photo shoots for him on some of his upcoming high-profile jobs...which has turned into the reason I'm here asking questions! ?

BTW, thanks to you guys I've now tried 2 types of pano with my new-to-me mavic pro: the "hover in place, shoot, yaw to the right, shoot, yaw to the right, shoot" type of pano (portrait mode, 4:3, bracked x5 for each "shot", then merge each set of 5 in hdr, then merge the hdr's into a single wide shot, then color grade), and the automated 360 pano. Now working thru processing those. I have about a month to practice before his next big job, so I should be an "expert" by then! ?

What program are you using to create your pano?

 

[WildDoktor]

For the "linear" panos I used PhotoDirector8; it worked good, but I need to learn it's color grading to make the final pic "pop".
For the 360 I wanted to try Microsoft ICE...but you can't download it from anywhere any more. Which stinks; I had it up until 6 months ago when I lost one of my storage hdds. Doh!
Then I tried the dji media maker, which is no longer supported, but is still downloadable. That worked "ok", but the "straight down" view is distorted right in the middle...I believe it's because I didn't snap a pic straight down before I started the mavic "360 pano" photo process.
For grins I also tried Hugin, but...it was late, and very unintuitive when things go wrong.
I still need to try using the dji go 4 app; I haven't done that yet.

Any suggestions? I'm not ready to pay for an Adobe subscription and start learning that software yet! I just began learning Davinci Resolve 17, but that's just for video and audio; I haven't found that it'll do photo editing, though I may be wrong.

 

[adm_geomatics]

For the "linear" panos I used PhotoDirector8; it worked good, but I need to learn it's color grading to make the final pic "pop".
For the 360 I wanted to try Microsoft ICE...but you can't download it from anywhere any more. Which stinks; I had it up until 6 months ago when I lost one of my storage hdds. Doh!
Then I tried the dji media maker, which is no longer supported, but is still downloadable. That worked "ok", but the "straight down" view is distorted right in the middle...I believe it's because I didn't snap a pic straight down before I started the mavic "360 pano" photo process.
For grins I also tried Hugin, but...it was late, and very unintuitive when things go wrong.
I still need to try using the dji go 4 app; I haven't done that yet.

Any suggestions? I'm not ready to pay for an Adobe subscription and start learning that software yet! I just began learning Davinci Resolve 17, but that's just for video and audio; I haven't found that it'll do photo editing, though I may be wrong.

Try this. Let me know if it doesn't work and I will share another way.

Microsoft ICE Download

We also use ACDSee for image editing. I filter the individual tiles before stitching. It works allot better than post-processing the final stitch.

 

[WildDoktor]

Wowza; thanks @chasco! That link worked; can't wait to try it tonight when I get home!

I'll check out acdsee as well.

 

[R.Perry]

I use Microsoft ICE and it works ok for me. You are correct you need to take a -90 degree, I actually take two, 180 degrees apart. My panos average 33 pictures. Start at 0 or +1, -15, -40, -65, & -90. I use to use Litchi for panos but it is too slow so I do them manually now. I can normally get four to five panos in on one pair of batteries. (The Inspire 2 uses 2 batteries)