How to be a Drone Mapping Pro | Deep Dive 

Our Pleasure.

good luck my brother. You and i are on the same route

We could make hours of content on true Survey workflow but that's not what this video is for. It was an introduction to what true Drone Mapping on a professional level includes.

@StuartRoss1081 Thanks for taking time to give additional info and commentary on this great video. Good information shared, brings Relief!

@@powerfullaudmarcus2455 Sure thing, our pleasure.

The prblem I see with inexperienced non-surveyor individuals is that they believe they are getting great data (sub-tenth verticle data) because the system is advertised that way. There's way too many things that go into what the ultimate accuracy will be to just make a blanket statement like that. One company, that I will not name, claims ALTA accuracy. I can tell that when the point cloud doesn't match your ground shots on concrete by 0.20' horizontally, it's not ALTA quality. A recent project of ours has some great results but every once in a while......bam! 0.50' verticle error as compared to the total station. Civils and Atchitects generally need much better than that especially where ADA issues exist! My two cents.

thank you

thanks.

They are really a great option.

Our pleasure.

Thank you Mathew

Our pleasure.

You gotta be kidding me! Mapping and Land Surveying is two different things! A Orthomosaic doesn't establish boundaries what so ever! It's simply a aerial photo. But that brings up a good point. Be cautious of the terms you use and be sure the customer understands the difference. What state is it you refer to?

Yes we cover that in the video.

We cover the equipment in the video. Industries for drone mapping are in the Survey, Engineering, and construction fields.

Yes

Stay tuned we will release when its ready.

You can create pre-programmed automated flights with most drones including M3 however you will need to lay down ground control points and check shots.

A GNSS receiver will only help you using an aircraft that has RTK compatibility. You could fly your missions without RTK and tie the accuracy locations in better with 5 to 8 GPC points. Pix4D is the industry standard for Post Processing software for Survey accuracy.

DJI Mavic 2 zoom would nt be a good drone for mapping. Mavic 2 pro would be a good for beginners and small projects. You want a camera that has a mechanical shutter like the old phantom 4 pro RTK or the Mavic 3E

@@vp62ift Mavic 2 pro has also electronical shutter. You mean better because it has 20mp photos instead of 12 like with Zoom?

How do you plan on validating your data?

@@RealTurboBuicks by recording GCP with the RTK mod on the m3e

@@blickpantheraj9029 To validiate data you have to compare independent checkshots that are not part of your Drone flights. We go over this in the video.

@@RealTurboBuicks The shots with the drone would be pre flight. After the base emlid is set, on point and correcting the drone's meta data.

@@blickpantheraj9029 You are referring to check shots correct? If so how do you plan on taking those shots?

If you use a consumer Mavic drone you will need to lay down ground control to tie the cloud tightly together and then establish check shots to validate the data. You can use a base-rover configuration to record the GCP data. Nothing we discussed pertains to PPK.

@@SteelCityDrones well with any drone really if you want survey accuracy you would need ground control points and check points to get accurate maps. We use a Mavic 3E with RTK module and have 4 propeller AeroPoints and every day we fly we set those AeroPoints on ground control points. I say ppk because when we use the AeroPoints we aren’t getting real time corrections..all the corrections get done during processing. What I’m asking is that you can still get survey accurate maps using a consumer drone and using a gnss receiver to shoot in control points and check points? I don’t need a $6000 Mavic 3E with RTK or the Matrice. I can get good accurate data using a Mavic 3 Air and my Toocon GNSS receiver correct?

@@littlenel17 Yes, before RTK was available for drones we could get survey grade accuracy by laying down ground control to tie the data closely. GSD plays a key role and adjusting for any Terrain elevation change with extra control as needed.

@@SteelCityDrones I’m looking to do my own mapping and photogrammetry but I don’t want to spend the money on a Mavic 3E. I have my own personal base rover (TopCon Hiper V) I also have access to the CORS Network if I wanted to just use the Rover. I’m not necessarily looking to provide survey services with the drone. Mostly orthos, volume calculations etc. but I’m wondering if I can use a Mavic Air 3 so capture data and set control points with my GNSS rover. Can I still achieve the same accuracy as if I was using the Mavic 3E RTK?

Mapping needs some programs to be effective but if you want to start out and make good money with drones i suggest fly by and fly over videos for realtors. A lot of times mapping requires a drone license where as arial photography is generally on private property. So you can do that while you get used to working with drones.

@@marcusbaer3083 Ty, what you suggest on how to start

Hello - Pix4D recommends a minimum of 5 GPC's and will not process any project with less than 3 GPC's. An aeropoint is a portable GPC. So factor a minimum of 5 GPC with 2 to 3 checkpoints. 2 Emlids are needed for a base-rover configuration to measure GPC-checkpoints. For flying you would use one over a known point that can broadcast the data out to the Drone over NTRIP. Hope this helps.

@@SteelCityDrones Thanks Dave, So to be clear. You don't need 5 aeropoints. You could use 1 aeropoint and place 3 or 4 other GCP's. Correct? I assumed when you were talking about Propellers aeropoints you were also using the propeller platform. I'm also curious on your thoughts of using a long static recording and OPUS vs connecting to a CORs network and being able to record a corrected point in a fraction of the time? You are correct, in that your method would require 2 Emlids. With CORs readily available in most areas (and free to use in some states) curious why not use this method? It would save a bunch of time rather than taking 2 hour static point observations

@@importjunky3106 That pretty much is NTRIP which can range from free up to $400 a month. ODOT is free, and you will get a corrected position quick but depends how accurate you need to be, a network point will never be as accurate as a post processed point.

This video is "NOT" nor was it meant to be a mapping course.

@@SteelCityDrones The video is titled " How to be a Drone Mappin Pro" ?

@@peterhoult-vb1rk yes from a high level work flow process.

Good question. It varies in the location you live in and from state to state in the US. Mapping, while traditionally part of the surveyors realm in the field, is more an engineering survey and not one requiring property delineation or decision making. Photogrammetrist are not necessarily surveyors, nor engineers, I can tell you that here in PA, it is illegal to "advertise" services such as "Survey Services". The define of Survey services includes "The professional services, such as establishing property/boundary lines is the main issue that has to be done by a licensed surveyor. A person with experience staking out roads or sewer systems is not required to be registered. There are survey techs that go out and capture and measure data with rovers and they don't need to be licensed either and it is not illegal to provide a customer with drone pictures and deliverables. People been doing that with planes for the longest time. A First Amendment lawsuit in North Carolina says surveyors cannot stop drone operators from selling photos and making maps. We strongly recommend to check with the state and or region you live in as the law can vary from state to state. The purpose of a surveylicense, in essence, is to protect the public in situation where they are not covered by the law of contract. Your neighbor, or the guy down the street, may have their boundaries adversely affected by the surveyor’s work, if it is deficient, but they have no recourse against the surveyor under contract, as there was no contract, implied or explicit, between them. They have recourse under the law of torts in the event that things go wrong, but the idea of the license is to ensure that this is as rare an event as possible. Drone operators should make claims about what they are imaging or claims about the location of boundaries. Their work has as much impact on your boundaries as your granny snapping a photo of your home from the street. With all that said, everything that we mention in the video above are processes to assure that if you do give a client deliverables with will go toward someone else doing the official survey work that the GeoData is as good as it can possibly be to survey standards.

@@SteelCityDrones Real bad idea to provide services that are traditionally done by a licensed surveyor (insured) if you're not one. There's a lot that can go wrong data wise and the inexperienced guy would never know what to check or how to correct bad data. We've had services provide ortho and point cloud data to us from our photos and control that was terrible. We re-shot all of the control and were sub-hundredth on all of them. The engineer using the data would never know if his design really works until construction staking occurs. Case in point. A recent project, flown by others, ended up with contours that were 0.55' off on average, The targets and Benchmark were checked and found to be good at the time of staking. over 2000 cubic yards extra had to be removed from the site because the design was based on bad contours. Guess who is being sued right right now? That's right, the guy that provided the aerial data. Plus, everyone involved is pissed at him and he won't be involved in projects like this one in the future.

@@tomthomsen11 There is nothing wrong with educating people on how to collect the data and then validate the data properly. The idea behind this video is to dispel the myths that an overwhelming amount of drone pilots about the perception of what the actual work flow is for collecting data properly. Many people feel all they need is to buy a $3500 drone and maybe an RTK module and they can provide clients with survey grade data. Also I would disagree that only licensed surveyors are the only ones to collect the data and set control. Survey tech's do this all the time and they don't have a survey license. Drone pilots can do this as well as long as they are properly trained and educated which is what we want to do.

PPK requires a mapping drone to take advantage of it.

@@SteelCityDrones so something like the M3 and M30?

@@christianmartinez6492 Mavic 3 enterprise, matrice350.

We are about 1 month away from having it available.

@@SteelCityDronesGreat, looking forward to it!

Without being a licensed surveyor, you then could say you offer services provided for surveyors? This seems to be walking a very thin legal line.

@@crawford323 It varies in the location you live in and from state to state in the US. Mapping, while traditionally part of the surveyors realm in the field, is more an engineering survey and not one requiring property delineation or decision making. Photogrammetrist are not necessarily surveyors, nor engineers, I can tell you that here in PA, it is illegal to "advertise" services such as "Survey Services". The define of Survey services includes "The professional services, such as establishing property/boundary lines is the main issue that has to be done by a licensed surveyor. A person with experience staking out roads or sewer systems is not required to be registered. There are survey techs that go out and capture and measure data with rovers and they don't need to be licensed either and it is not illegal to provide a customer with drone pictures and deliverables. People been doing that with planes for the longest time. A First Amendment lawsuit in North Carolina says surveyors cannot stop drone operators from selling photos and making maps. We strongly recommend to check with the state and or region you live in as the law can vary from state to state. The purpose of a survey license, in essence, is to protect the public in situation where they are not covered by the law of contract. Your neighbor, or the guy down the street, may have their boundaries adversely affected by the surveyor’s work, if it is deficient, but they have no recourse against the surveyor under contract, as there was no contract, implied or explicit, between them. They have recourse under the law of torts in the event that things go wrong, but the idea of the license is to ensure that this is as rare an event as possible. Drone operators should make claims about what they are imaging or claims about the location of boundaries. Their work has as much impact on your boundaries as your granny snapping a photo of your home from the street. With all that said, everything that we mention in the video above are processes to assure that if you do give a client deliverables with will go toward someone else doing the official survey work that the GeoData is as good as it can possibly be to survey standards.

@@SteelCityDrones this clarifies, what I was thinking that you could do services for license surveyors, and make sure that your accuracy was enough that would be useful to them

@koolkiwkat This video is not a mapping or survey class.It's an introduction to knowing what it takes to do this line of work that reviews the proper equipment and workflow processes needed to ensure that the data you collect is accurate and can be verified. Can you tell me what material in the video is confusing?