Curious if anyone here is using DroneDeploy to provide services to landscape design companies? A company I’ve done photography for in the past is looking for a solution that provides the following (I’m part 107 certified BTW):
Identify tree or plant species from images
View elevation changes to design irrigation installations
Identify turf disease and/or weeds
Identify plant beds that need mulch replacement or expansion due to overgrowth of shrubs/trees
Plant drought stress
I looked at the DroneDeploy / Agremo plugin, but this seems to be for large, open farm fields. Is there any solution for urban gardens that may or may not be covered by a tree canopy?
Using a drone for urban landscape situations is a bit ‘iffy’.
Identify trees; tough to do without a lot of ground-truthing to verify what you are looking at. Looking down on tree canopies provides a different view than most are familiar with, so ID is tough. You might get down to genus level if your photo interpreter is experienced. It also depends on the common species in your area.
Elevation changes; not really part of my experience. I’ll let others answer this.
Turf disease/weeds; Same as #1. Depending on the disease you are looking for you may be able to spot some areas. Keep in mind that what you are looking for is areas of poor crop vigor. Subtle color differences are key here, so you may need special cameras or filters for best results. Again, not part of my experience.
Plant beds/mulch; I will hazard a guess that this might be doable, if the beds have been maintained well in the past, so that mulch thinning is visible. Again, you will need to verify on the ground as you develop your program.
This is probably better documented than most of the other issues. As in #3 above, you will find that special cameras and/or filters will help. Infrared photography is especially good at this. Again, the camera can show differences in reflectivity of IR light, which is then interpreted as drought, disease, or other factors.
You may not be able to get all this information at the same time. Landscape beds and turf condition will be impeded by tree canopy, so dormant season flights may be best. Tree canopy condition will be best interpreted during the growing season, but you may still need more than one flight. Spring (April through June depending on location) will show mostly vigorous growth if climate is close to normal, but summer (July through September or October) will better show the stress produced by heat and drought.
I am an arborist of 45 years, and have dabbled in using a Mavic Pro for several years. I gladly defer to others with more technical expertise on the drone issues.
Hello, I work for a company called Aerotract. We could possibly provide these solutions through our own AI. If you want to do the flying but have us process/analyze your images, send a detailed email to jamesh@aerotractone.com
you can check us out on the web at aerotractone.com as well
Hey we definitely are heavy users of DD so that’s why you heard from me. We use DD for what it’s capable of doing. As the person above said, DD is iffy on a lot of those things you want to try to use it for and also cannot do many others, you have to use supplemental programs to process data. I was just trying to be helpful! Good luck!