Solo for mapping

[franknitty69]

its definitely not automated with the gopro because solo or the app can't see the gopro sd card. it is automated with the sony. it has a full featured dev kit and previews and full res images can be transferred from the camera pragmatically. but yes if you have to transfer images to your computer, tag and upload them, then you are back to the traditional method.

recap360 does 3d well so does pix4d. if you use a high quality camera then features like trees or light poles are recreated precisely. with a gopro, the 3d won't be as precise unless you change the lens. you could remove barrel distortion before processing, but an aftermarket lens would be the best setup.

you can try recap360 for 30 days to see you how you like. i gave it a try and was pleased with the quality and speed and i like the interface.

 

[vgo195]

Here http://escadrone.com/solo-mapper/?lang=en
They sell a sony Qx1 camera 20mp and gimbal for the solo.
It seems good but a little expensive around 1700$.
Anyway this seems an good option for mapping if it works good.

 

[Ørjan Sandland]

Here http://escadrone.com/solo-mapper/?lang=en
They sell a sony Qx1 camera 20mp and gimbal for the solo.
It seems good but a little expensive around 1700$.
Anyway this seems an good option for mapping if it works good.

I've seen the same, and was tempted even before I started experimenting with fields mapping. It may just be that I'm inexperienced, but the geotagging process seems to be a little hit and miss? I haven't tried it too many times, but there are so many errors on the geotagging using the tlog pairing it with the images. I'm thinking escadrone (and similar systems) may be an answer to the precision issue?
If I'm wrong, please don't hesitate telling me . I'm currently experimenting with a MapIR Survey2 camera.

 

[Jubalr]

I've seen the same, and was tempted even before I started experimenting with fields mapping. It may just be that I'm inexperienced, but the geotagging process seems to be a little hit and miss? I haven't tried it too many times, but there are so many errors on the geotagging using the tlog pairing it with the images. I'm thinking escadrone (and similar systems) may be an answer to the precision issue?
If I'm wrong, please don't hesitate telling me . I'm currently experimenting with a MapIR Survey2 camera.

Using MP and tlogs to geotag can be pretty hit and miss. I have had great results though with Geosetter. Have you tried it?

 

[Ørjan Sandland]

Using MP and tlogs to geotag can be pretty hit and miss. I have had great results though with Geosetter. Have you tried it?

I tried it - and it worked very well! On the other hand... my initial issues was related to the fact that I had an offset of nearly 2hrs on the image timestamps and the flightlog .

 

[Marius]

Hi all.

I've been looking for a no-frills, cost-efficient way of collecting ortophotos / data for digital elevation models. I'm a GIS professional myself, but have know experience in drones whatsoever. Seems like the 3DR Solo would be a good platform to learn about drone data collection but there seems to be so many options built around the Solo that I don't know which one I should go for. My list includes the following solutions

www.3dr.com/
www.escadrone.com/solo-mapper/?lang=en
www.peauproductions.com/apps/productbuilder/solobuilder
www.mapir.camera/apps/productbuilder/soloultimatemappingpackage

I'd like to ask from you guys as you are the experts in this field, which one of these you are using and why if any, or is there yet some other options here? I was excited to see that you can get what seems a ready-to-fly custome made Solo for around $2000. But, for photo georeferencing, orthophoto creation and DEM you need couple of different software which in turn have pretty high yearly license fees and suddenly the Solo + software for image processing will cost easily $10 000 / year (for example the MapIR way of doing things). With that price one could get the whole 3DR Site Scan license so my question is really, should I just get the Site Scan and forget about the rest or could I find a solution that would do the same with 1/3 or 1/2 the price of a Site Scan solution? Oh, and I'm just assuming Site Scan is the benchmark here since it's a 3DR product, but please correct me if I'm wrong!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ed Beck]

Depends on what you need. If you need multi-spectral the MAPIR is the only one I know of that provides it.

On the other hand I've gotten good results with Solo, a GoPro 4, Tower (to plan and fly the survey), Geosetter (to geotag the photos) and Drone Deploy.

Have a look at these and see if it meets your needs. I did these with the above equipment and used Drone Deploy at 10cm/pixel. There are different options, the 10cm/pixel resolution costs $99 per month. Other plans cost more and provide higher resolution and other options.

http://drdp.ly/3McQ7h
http://drdp.ly/FqTKvX

 

[franknitty69]

there are a few turn key hardware solutions out there based on solo. or you could just use an out of the box solo with a GoPro or add a better camera by mounting it in the accessory bay (you don't need a gimbal for mapping).

as far as software, yes its pricey, but there are a few solutions that are free or even low priced with limited features. for example DDMS by event 38 has a free plan. its limited to 5 jobs per month, a max of 500 of photos per job, a resolution of 15cm and only a geo map and 3d model as export. but the upgraded tiers are only $79 (Pro) and $199 (advanced) per month. Thats the best price in the business.

 

[ChrisBird]

Hi all.

I've been looking for a no-frills, cost-efficient way of collecting ortophotos / data for digital elevation models. I'm a GIS professional myself, but have know experience in drones whatsoever. Seems like the 3DR Solo would be a good platform to learn about drone data collection but there seems to be so many options built around the Solo that I don't know which one I should go for. My list includes the following solutions

www.3dr.com/
www.escadrone.com/solo-mapper/?lang=en
www.peauproductions.com/apps/productbuilder/solobuilder
www.mapir.camera/apps/productbuilder/soloultimatemappingpackage

I'd like to ask from you guys as you are the experts in this field, which one of these you are using and why if any, or is there yet some other options here? I was excited to see that you can get what seems a ready-to-fly custome made Solo for around $2000. But, for photo georeferencing, orthophoto creation and DEM you need couple of different software which in turn have pretty high yearly license fees and suddenly the Solo + software for image processing will cost easily $10 000 / year (for example the MapIR way of doing things). With that price one could get the whole 3DR Site Scan license so my question is really, should I just get the Site Scan and forget about the rest or could I find a solution that would do the same with 1/3 or 1/2 the price of a Site Scan solution? Oh, and I'm just assuming Site Scan is the benchmark here since it's a 3DR product, but please correct me if I'm wrong!

Thanks in advance!

If your after reasonable results I'd suggest using the Solo with stock or modifed lens gopro is not a bad choice. For higher res or bigger areas you might need to reconsider but it does an area of around 8 football fields with a gsd of 1.5cm easily at 40m alt.

Post processing, Pix4d is damn good but very pricey. They a month to month if that suits your business needs (around $330). The other options being mapsmadeeasy (I've had issues with gopro images and them), event38 - not bad results, offers a free option but not really usuable for clients plus no good export options (once your on a plan they do well), dronedeploy.

Ive also experimented with agisoft offering, not bad either.

I prefer pix4d but that cost is hard to justify.

Chris



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[Marius]

Thanks guys for your feedback and opinions!

Has anyone of you used ERSI's Drone2Map? I understood it uses Pix4d. We have ESRI in house so that's why it's interesting (most likely not anymore when we find out the pricing of it..).

Also, not being a pro here, and our surveyed areas being normally up to 20-40 km2 in size, I'd like to get an idea how much area (with feasible image overlap for DEM production) I could capture with a Solo + a modded GoPro (or Sony UMC-R10C) on single flight if 5-10cm ground pixel resolution would be feasible? Is there some online calculators to estimate this? What I'm essentially after is that how many extra batteries I need if I'd be to survey a 30 km2 area with a 5-10cm ground pixel resolution.

 

[Ed Beck]

Thanks guys for your feedback and opinions!

Has anyone of you used ERSI's Drone2Map? I understood it uses Pix4d. We have ESRI in house so that's why it's interesting (most likely not anymore when we find out the pricing of it..).

Also, not being a pro here, and our surveyed areas being normally up to 20-40 km2 in size, I'd like to get an idea how much area (with feasible image overlap for DEM production) I could capture with a Solo + a modded GoPro (or Sony UMC-R10C) on single flight if 5-10cm ground pixel resolution would be feasible? Is there some online calculators to estimate this? What I'm essentially after is that how many extra batteries I need if I'd be to survey a 30 km2 area with a 5-10cm ground pixel resolution.

Use Mission Planner to outline the area, it will tell you how long a flight time there will be. I use an 80% sidelap and overlap at 125' AGL unless I have obstacles to overfly.

One advantage of Mission Planner over Tower is that if you need to change batteries MP will start Solo where it left off. With Tower you need to plan flights that of about 15 minutes so you can land with an adequate reserve.

Seven batteries is the number for continuous operation, six is the minimum but it's good to have a buffer.

 

[Ørjan Sandland]

Ok, am I missing something key here? You plan to map 20km2 of area with Solo :O :O :O. At 120m AGL, with a 24mpx A6000 w/16mm lens, overlap front and side set to 20% and speed at 10m/s it will take a whooping 7,5 hours to map... If you go up to 450 meters AGL, you'll get 11cm/px resolution with the before mentioned parameters.. and it'll take you two hours..

 

[MillsapsPE]

Thanks guys for your feedback and opinions!

Has anyone of you used ERSI's Drone2Map? I understood it uses Pix4d. We have ESRI in house so that's why it's interesting (most likely not anymore when we find out the pricing of it..).

Also, not being a pro here, and our surveyed areas being normally up to 20-40 km2 in size, I'd like to get an idea how much area (with feasible image overlap for DEM production) I could capture with a Solo + a modded GoPro (or Sony UMC-R10C) on single flight if 5-10cm ground pixel resolution would be feasible? Is there some online calculators to estimate this? What I'm essentially after is that how many extra batteries I need if I'd be to survey a 30 km2 area with a 5-10cm ground pixel resolution.

You can't reasonably map 20-40km2 (4900-9900 acres) using any multi-rotor UAV. You need to be looking at mid to high-end fixed-wing UAVs for that size of area.

 

[mecummings.cr]

What is the best way to mount the Sony Alpha a6000 to a Solo? Can you point it down without the gimbal mount and still produce a good orthomosaic by attaching it to the bottom of the Solo? I purchased the recent Solo Best Buy deal as a backup to my primary Solo but am considering doing a setup with the Sony Alpha a6000 to do aerial mapping and take construction progress photos. I shot the attached with the GoPro Hero4 Black modified with a Peau 3.97mm f/2.8 flat lens but would like to get something better than 12mp resolution without having to go the very costly Sitescan route. The attached photo was taken this week at 160ft AGL and next time will take it closer to mid morning to get rid of the shadows. I also may consider flying the tower mission lower but weighing the options out there. Thanks for any suggestions.

P.S. An approved Part 107 Certificate of Waiver was in place for this flight.

 

[MillsapsPE]

What is the best way to mount the Sony Alpha a6000 to a Solo? Can you point it down without the gimbal mount and still produce a good orthomosaic by attaching it to the bottom of the Solo? I purchased the recent Solo Best Buy deal as a backup to my primary Solo but am considering doing a setup with the Sony Alpha a6000 to do aerial mapping and take construction progress photos. I shot the attached with the GoPro Hero4 Black modified with a Peau 3.97mm f/2.8 flat lens but would like to get something better than 12mp resolution without having to go the very costly Sitescan route. The attached photo was taken this week at 160ft AGL and next time will take it closer to mid morning to get rid of the shadows. I also may consider flying the tower mission lower but weighing the options out there. Thanks for any suggestions.

You might check with IMP Concepts. I don't see one for the Sony a6000 on the Solo, but he might be able to make one for you. If you do get it mounted, you need to conduct some tests, because the additional weight will definitely affect flight times. I have flown with two Canon S100's and only get 10-11 minutes of flight time.

 

[fenris]

What is the best way to mount the Sony Alpha a6000 to a Solo? Can you point it down without the gimbal mount and still produce a good orthomosaic by attaching it to the bottom of the Solo? I purchased the recent Solo Best Buy deal as a backup to my primary Solo but am considering doing a setup with the Sony Alpha a6000 to do aerial mapping and take construction progress photos. I shot the attached with the GoPro Hero4 Black modified with a Peau 3.97mm f/2.8 flat lens but would like to get something better than 12mp resolution without having to go the very costly Sitescan route. The attached photo was taken this week at 160ft AGL and next time will take it closer to mid morning to get rid of the shadows. I also may consider flying the tower mission lower but weighing the options out there. Thanks for any suggestions.

I'm working on designing a 3d printed mount for a Sony a5100 / a6000 currently. You can even get the live feed through the micro HDMI from the a6000. I will likely place the a6000 right under where the current camera/gimbal mount is in the forward bay, rather than put it over the accessory bay.

 

[mecummings.cr]

I'm working on designing a 3d printed mount for a Sony a5100 / a6000 currently. You can even get the live feed through the micro HDMI from the a6000. I will likely place the a6000 right under where the current camera/gimbal mount is in the forward bay, rather than put it over the accessory bay.

The 3d printed mount sounds interesting as long as there is a way to trigger the camera. This would be a nice option with my backup Solo.

 

[Perry Lawrence]

Depends on what you need. If you need multi-spectral the MAPIR is the only one I know of that provides it.

On the other hand I've gotten good results with Solo, a GoPro 4, Tower (to plan and fly the survey), Geosetter (to geotag the photos) and Drone Deploy.

Have a look at these and see if it meets your needs. I did these with the above equipment and used Drone Deploy at 10cm/pixel. There are different options, the 10cm/pixel resolution costs $99 per month. Other plans cost more and provide higher resolution and other options.

http://drdp.ly/3McQ7h
http://drdp.ly/FqTKvX

Ed, what lens on your GoPro are you using with this setup?


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[fenris]

The 3d printed mount sounds interesting as long as there is a way to trigger the camera. This would be a nice option with my backup Solo.

I'm only interested in it for mapping/photo-modeling, so there's no need to trigger the camera - the Sony timelapse app takes care of that.

 

[chriskin]

Thanks guys for your feedback and opinions!

Has anyone of you used ERSI's Drone2Map? I understood it uses Pix4d. We have ESRI in house so that's why it's interesting (most likely not anymore when we find out the pricing of it..).

Also, not being a pro here, and our surveyed areas being normally up to 20-40 km2 in size, I'd like to get an idea how much area (with feasible image overlap for DEM production) I could capture with a Solo + a modded GoPro (or Sony UMC-R10C) on single flight if 5-10cm ground pixel resolution would be feasible? Is there some online calculators to estimate this? What I'm essentially after is that how many extra batteries I need if I'd be to survey a 30 km2 area with a 5-10cm ground pixel resolution.

Yes. I've used it. It's kind of awesome if you're already a GIS person operating in the ArcGIS environment. It does use Pix4D. Esri has adapted it to be integrated with their GIS platform, which is pretty unrivalled if you're doing spatial analysis, modelling, urban planning, high-end cartography.