Flight Plans and Overlays

I would like to request the ability to bring in a CAD overlay when creating initial flights. Usually we do this in Google Earth and then bring the KML in, but I have notice shifts between Google Earth and the “Google Earth” that is on the DroneDeploy interface so it is usually a best guess and I have to overfly to make sure I have captured everything. It would also be valuable when there is a revision or an area is added and you just found out right before your next flight.

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Along the same lines, but adding the ability to finalize a flight plan by creating a new flight plan from the cropped area as defined by the user and CAD overlay.

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@MichaelL Planning with a CAD overlay just makes sense to me. This is a great suggestion. I’ve already brought this up to product. Thank you!

As a side note, Google Earth / Maps is never perfect (as I am sure you know probably better than anyone!), but earlier this year there was a particularly pronounced issue where their layer was very incorrectly georeferenced, and after we reported the issue (a lot of our properly georeferenced maps weren’t oriented on the base layer correctly), it was fixed, so I would be curious if you’ve noticed any difference since the original post.

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It really depends on what area you are in and it varies pretty well across a 200-mile radius in our area.

The biggest issue I see with planning a site is when the latest maps shows a forest of trees. Even a open pasture is difficult when trying to fly a pond. Usually I have to manually drive/walk around to get the boundary of my flight.

So having a overlay would be great.

Hi,

Overlays do not show up in the Fly tab. When I want to lay out my flight plan I have nothing to reference for a corridor flight. I makes it hard to lay out the plan if I don’t have anything to reference. In the city where you have buildings or street to reference it not a problem, out in the oil fields of Texas all you have are bushes or a rock to reference.

Thanks

Jim

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I’m not sure how I never thought of this before but I just now figured out that you can bring in an overlay layer into a project as soon as you set it up and actually before flying a mission. Now the thing that doesn’t make sense is why we still can’t use overlays to plan missions. This was brought up almost 3 years ago so I just started a new thread.

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Michael, My workaround for this request is to use QGIS or Google Earth to import Civil files or other drawings that have coordinates. Using these drawings, one can generate a shapefile that is georeferenced and can be imported onto DroneDeploy

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Very cool. So bring the CAD into QGIS, make a georeferenced SHP or GeoTiff (if background is need) and then import that into DD on a brand new project and be able to see the linework and/or background in the planning interface? Just verifying want I have seen so far. I’ll try one in a bit.

You can also bring a PDF that has coordinates. Then you can create a new shapefile with features of interest. For example, I typically trace the outline of the building which I then import into DD. With this building outline then I can start planning.

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Perfect, this will help. Especially if it works for Corridor as well.

Would love to see a youtube tutorial on this!

I’ll add to this that you can georeference any image in QGIS if you have coordinates for objects that you can see on the input. There’s some good terms for Google.

I concur, it would be great to have overlays at the planning and the upload screens.

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This has been open for several years (the original request coming from 2019). While I’m sure the above mentioned workaround is great, it seems like more than we should have to do. I’m wondering if DroneDeploy has any plans to make the overlays available when planning missions?

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This is a more beneficial feature than what I think they realize. We use Mavic 3 Enterprise RTK drones here and fly with DJI Pilot 2 and have started using CAD linework from the designs as custom web maps (WMS server) so that you can not only plan with it but see it on the RC as you fly. Very helpful.

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100% agree. When I raised this with my customer rep it took a bit of effort to relay what exactly was required and for them to understand why. I was eventually ended up talking to one of the team in America responsible for the implementation of new features, and they advised that it was lower in priority than other in-demand features.
We need to boost interest in this feature with as many people as possible.

For background: I fly greenfield sites in remote areas, making it difficult to plan missions as efficiently as possible without having the construction design showing in the FLY tab.
For standard map missions, the shapefile-upload workaround is effective (but incredibly time consuming for larger sites), but critically, when it comes to corridor missions there is no workaround short of using GIS/GEarth with the design, and then tediously matching reference points to generate your corridor mission.

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