I am wanting to take a series of marked waypoints on a 2D ortho and export them to a report which has the GPS coordinates to then be able to upload to a ground GPS. Can’t seem to find a solution. Any ideas team?
Try QGIS. I will try to do a walk-through today, but this will get you started. You can also draw linework in a similar manner. Once you have the layers, right-click on them and save as a CSV and DXF.
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Here’s a quick walk-through of creating points in QGIS Desktop 3.0 and exporting them to a CSV file.
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Open QGIS and start a new project.
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Set the EPSG (coordinate system) for the project.
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Browse to and open your GeoTIFF. Make sure it was exported in the coordinate system you want.
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Create a new Shapefile layer with Points as the type.
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Choose where to save the Shapefile file.
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Open the properties of the Shapefile layer and set your symbol type.
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Set your points.
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Right-click on the Shapefile layer and Save As.
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Be sure to export with Geometry to include the coordinates.
With the workflow above and a high quality flight you can run the mission once and create GCPs for future missions. You will need to know the elevations of the objects, but that can be done with an auto-level or laser level. The accuracy won’t be quite as good as if you had collected the points with a survey grade instrument, but it will suffice for 90% of user’s needs. Now your maps are all relative to each other and progress topo’s can be done.
A similar task can be done to digitize linework over the map and export to a CAD DXF file for data collector linework and/or CAD designing.
Hey that’s great. I have downloaded QGIS and loaded the 2D. Plotted a few points and now just working on extracting them. I need them ideally in NZTM so will try and nut that out. I am guessing WGS84 is the standard setting to use for the layer.
Yes - WGS84 is what the drone shoots, but you can export whatever projection you want from DroneDeploy and it “should” crossover. I always check by habit though. Right now I am working on building a custom CSV format that matches DroneDeploy and another for our survey gear. Do you use P,Y,X,Z,D? If your projection isn’t in there you should be able to download the data file from a local GIS source and load it in. I had to do that with my specific project because the options for my region were not what our local surveyors use. Same in DroneDeploy.
Well i have the layer with GPS points. I am marking pest plants. But i seem to be having a few issues in being able to export to CSV or GPX for that matter. I must be doing something wrong in the program as i hit an error.
Can you share a screenshot?
I select the layer on the table on the left by right clicking. Export. Then i follow my nose regarding the type of export etc…, but each time i hit a failed to export.
But wait, i have now managed to export it csv to file, i had to select a folder in the saving process it seems. However the file i have saved doesn’t have any csv data other than the header! Getting closer!!
And now i have it!!
I see i had to click on the x,y on the geometry tab before exporting.
Phew.
Thanks so much for your help.
I will now have to work out getting it uploaded into the Garmin. I suspect that Lat Long will be an ok format as that is the default of the gps, and then it can convert to NZTM once in the gps.
Will now try and export it as GPX format which should load straight in.
Cheers,
Awesome, please keep reporting your progress. I think this is an important piece for allot of drone operators that don’t necessarily have CAD skills or the access to full software. With this and a decently capable data collector software you can do allot of damage. In a good way of course!
I’ve never used GPX… Is that a Garmin format?
So i got it exported in GPX, looks like the lat long i need.
Will now try the import into the GPS.
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I looked up those coordinates because they looked odd to me, but I have never been to New Zealand and had no clue. On my bucket list though. This is what I get approximately from Google Earth for WGS84?
