I’ve been sent a kml that describes a large site (over 30km in length).
I’ve managed to import this into Google maps/earth and it appears to be comprised of a number of small and larger polygons and lines, rather than a single polygon for the entire area.
When I import it into Drone Deploy, I only get the first set of coordinates (representing the first line or polygon) and I’ve tried manually editing the kml to include other coordinates but it quickly becomes unmanageable.
I am trying to use this kml to evaluate the job and determine how long it might take to complete, however the kml does not appear to be being interpreted properly and is probably too large to deal with in one anyway.
To manually plan flights for the entire area using the app would be extremely time consuming, is there any way of automating this using the kml?
You might try and trace it by creating a polygon in Google Earth as described below that you then export as a kml into DD. Other than that, you may have to break it into smaller pieces.
I’ve never used ArcMap before… in the end I used Upwork and paid someone to pretty much do that, although now I am having to manually go through the individual files and fix the formatting because I’ve ended up with multiple sets of coordinates in each and Drone Deploy appears to only pick up the first set?
It looks like the job is going to be too large and complex to complete using my multi-rotor drones anyway but at least I will have an idea on how long it would take.
You said a large site, but you also said 30km in length. If it’s a site I would have expected hectares. If it’s a roadway, I could fly that in about two hours. Don’t sell your quad short.
You make some valid points. It is a combination of road and construction site adjacent to the road, so hectares would have been a better way to describe the total area.
With the limitations on flying VLOS here, the max distance you can be from the drone is 500m (unless you are licenced for EVLOS which extends it by another 500m) which means that long, narrow areas (of which this job contains a number) aren’t as straightforward as they might otherwise be
Ouch, where are you flying? Or is it in the respect that you cannot get a vantage point that allows you to see any further? I guess I never thought about being thankful for being able to set my own vlos. I’m typically right around 1000m which allows to fly 2000m in about 15 minutes.
That’s terrible. If you want me to fix that polygon just send it to me but sounds like you’d have to keep it split based on distance and construction areas.
I received the file. This looks like a great job! I would do a combination of linear and standard flight plans. Obviously the linear are going to be constrained by your VLOS (3000’) regulation, but for the bulk you should be able to parcel off about 100ac (40ha) at a time. Once you get going it is pretty easy to visualize your individual polygons. I wouldn’t worry to much about the detail of the perimeter of the polygon and just cut across small PI’s (bends) to create a more uniform shape. IT’S ALWAYS BETTER TO OVERFLY THEN FLY AGAIN. I tested starting at the far west road (2 pieces) and worked my way back to the east and it was pretty easy to subdivide.
