Pulling meta data from photos to QGIS

Flight - Discussion and Q&A
1

Hi guys,
Dronedeploy does not allow overlays on planning or upload maps. It also does allow us to choose which map to use as an underlay while planning, this can cause poor onsite planning.
My sites are way past reception areas so I cant use the app to upload photos onsite.
Occasionally the guys onsite will throw me a curve ball and need an area mapped that I couldn’t plan for.

I download all orthos and use QGIS to do my reporting. I’d like to be able to pull the EXIF data of all the photos in a flight and show them in the same way as they appear in the upload screen. That way I can use a more upto date underlay to ensure I’ve completely covered the area I’m interested in. (The dronedeploy base map uses Google maps that are >5years old).

So, in summary, is it possible to pull the location data quickly from each photo and have it displayed in QGIS in a similar way to the screen below? Or is there a way to choose which basemap is being used in the planning stage?

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2 Likes
2

Joe,
I think there is an easier solution to your predicament. DroneDeploy allows importing of a shapefile. For my flight planning on new sites, I import a civil drawing with coordinates and use the georeferencing tool to get it to the right place. After this is completed I trace the building outline, LOD, or whatever area of interest and export that polygon file to a KML which can be imported into DroneDeploy. Using this information, I proceed to create my plan.

3

Why not just draw in QGIS?

4

Drone Deploy is very, very picky importing KML files and so far I haven’t had much luck. I have to re-investigate this as I think I need to strip all the points and other data from my KMLs for them to import.

5

The only thing that should be in the KML is the polygon itself. It can’t be a polyline either.