What software do you use your drone data in?

Hi All

We’re looking to better understand the tools our users are using, and our compatibility (or lack of!)

What software are you using your DroneDeploy data in? (ArcGIS, SMS AgLeader, SketchUp etc?) And what software do you wish to use it in

Mike

GlobalMapper
http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/products/global-mapper.php

Great. Dong survey work? What settings are you using to export to GlobalMapper?

Yes. I use the orthophotoplans for roads and buildings outlines and I work in WGS84 datum, so what DD provides is ok.

We are trying to map larger agricultural fields, the program we are using is Farmworks. It will not load the images as they are too large. They suggested trying to get them into a shapefile.
Thanks
Curt

Mike,
I am using Ag Leader SMS to work with the images. I have not had any issues importing the images in and working with them but a shapefile export is greatly needed. I would like to have it on the NDVI map so that I do not have to process the image again in SMS. Thank you.

Thanks Curt

Have you tried reducing the resolution to 50cm/pixel. We’re working on shapefile support right now. We’ll get you guys (+Robbie) on first.

MDMcurt,

What specifically are you using in farmworks? how are you using the DD info in FarmWorks?

Have not been able to get any photos into farmworks, they are too big. Talked to them and ig can get a shapefile then it will import and I can manipulate data in farmworks as well. My goal is to be able to take a pic and draw out zones from pic in farmworks. More of an overview of field vs intense pic.
Thanks
Curt

My main goal is cultural heritage mapping, currently mapping iron age burial sites in Norway. I just started with DroneDeploy and are in my one month trial. Here is some feedback on the data formats and tools I use.
Geotiffs: while the elevation geotiffs work fine for presentation (ArcGIS, QGis, Mapbox) further analyses of them shows that they only contain color band data and no actual elevation values (done with FME which is my main tool for analyses and conversion of both geotiff and point cloud. The “jet” version contains 4 bands (RGB and alpha) and the “grey” contained to my surprise also 4 bands which is overkill and could be reduced significantly. The lack of actual elevation values I compensate by mapping the 255 color band values against the original elevation values to generate an elevation raster (done in FME).

las : I have just started with the point clouds but the FME las reader did not open the downloaded las files out of the box, have not have time to investigate further.

obj: works great out of the box in Blender and Meshlab. I use these tools to clean spikes and fill holes before presentation. Great for outreach but limited for analyses.
Hope this is of use. Thanks for a great product :slight_smile:
Boele

Thanks for the detailed response - really useful for us!

For the elevation geotiffs you’re correct - at the moment we’re only exporting the coloured images as they appear on screen, rather than the raw elevation values. We’ve had the request from a few customers for the option of raw elevation values, so definitely have that on the roadmap for the near future.

Good point on the grayscale geotiff as well - we can definitely get that down to a single band to reduce size.

I don’t have any experience with FME for point clouds, but we are planning on introducing a more basic “xyz” format (basically just a list of points with xyz locations) which might be more portable. Some of our customers use AutoCAD civil 3D for point cloud manipulation, and I think the .las file works fine there.

Jeremy

Does anyone have experience importing their .obj files from DroneDeploy into SketchUp? If so, could you advise on the procedure for doing so and best practices?

Thanks!
Neema

How is the integration with AgX coming along? I spoke with an SST guy today and he said drone deploy is working on integration with AgX and summit to allow AgX users to pull data generated by drone deploy into AgX to create their management zones and application solutions.

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I use the GeoTIFF combined with the elevation shapefile to get 1’ contours in QGIS. Have you tried the shapefile output for elevation data? It’s more accurate than color mapping.

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Process with Drone2Map because workstation.
I use ArcGIS desktop and ArcGIS Online daily.

I too just started using DroneDeploy and coming to the end of my one month trial. Primarily using it monitor and manage the rough grading earthwork operations on our large construction sites. While the 2D orthomosaics seem to work fine, we are having frustrating problems getting the 3D las point cloud files to import properly into AutoDesk Civil 3D. We are trying to generate surfaces for further earthwork design and verifying volume calculations.

You should be able to import into Civil 3D. Check out the support documentation here: http://support.dronedeploy.com/docs/importing-point-cloud-data-into-autocad-civil-3d-2016

Photoscan, lastools and QGIS

I may be dumb, but lastools confuse me