New "In-Field" Application Validates Captures While Still On Job Sites

I wanted to share information about an “in-field” image analysis tool that has been helping me a lot recently. It is a new Windows PC application that just launched and allows you to analyze your mapping mission captures BEFORE leaving a job site. It was developed by an optical engineer (Michael Sanchez) so it is fast and easy to use. He created this lightweight Windows PC application that I think many of you might find valuable.

It isn’t a fancy piece of software (only $30 during introductory period) – but it is fast and gets the job done (which all I want in the field!) The PC application quickly plots your images and provides an immediate Image Overlap analysis in less than 3 minutes. This has helped me validate that I captured nadir images over the whole site and that I have enough overlap for a job before ever leaving the site for the day (it is even more terrific when you are flying multiple missions over multiple days.) Using the Beta version at just one job site saved us a full day’s travel and reshoot time.

Check it out here: http://www.sanchezeng.com/pique.html

Thanks for the share! I am sure there will be a few testers and look forward to hearing the feedback.

Just curious what the catalyst was for needing a program like this? DroneDeploy’s overlap performance has been pretty solid with the exception of a few issue that you can see in the threads here. There is also an overlap optimizer app in the market to validate the planning. Last, but not least, you can run Live Map to see the stitched image while the flight progresses and it is then available in you account within about 15 minutes.

Anyway I will be checking this out!

Hi Michael – Thank you for your reply and question. There were a few situations which I’ve personally run into that helped to drive this development (many of these hopefully have never been experienced by you) – they include:

  1. Having a mission stop taking images after a battery change
  2. My Phantom 4 Pro capturing images but then “skipping” spaces between image capture. Some people say it is a memory card thing (not my experience) but still caused me to need to go back and “pick-up” some areas
  3. Working in some areas which don’t have any internet connection (so some tools are not available)
  4. Having camera and exposure settings change that result in overexposed/under exposed images – or having camera settings change from 3:2 to 16:9. Also just not enough feature density in images allows to reshoot an area to solve the issue (like adding ground markers in a uniform area of dirt.)
  5. Capture of some 3D/vertical inspections that are not easily visualized

But overall, the big driver was to make sure we have a good capture before leaving a site. Critical when we have only a airspace authorization for just a few hours – or trying to capture a construction site on a specific day.

Regarding your use of Live Map – yes, it is great to validate the drone is capturing nadir images and has some overlap, but that does directly translate to good overlap for photogrammetry.

We’ll be interested in hearing your thoughts – please download and register for the 14 day free trial of PIQuE.

Steven
steven@sanchezeng.com
310-325-3333

1 Like