Let's compile all of our knowledge into one place of how to create orthomosaic maps with an XSP

[Jagerbomb52]

Still have not had a chance to get out. It has warmed up some and wind has calmed down but very over cast. Not sure how that would affect the final project.

One thing I found out that made life so much better making the grid lines for the mission. I always had trouble moving the waypoint on my tablet. Maybe everyone knew this already but I did not. If you hold your finger on the little white flag thing from the waypoint it moves no problem. I was getting very frustrated trying to find the right spot to touch and found that was the sweet spot. Learn something every day

 

[Sundog775]

Still have not had a chance to get out. It has warmed up some and wind has calmed down but very over cast. Not sure how that would affect the final project.

One thing I found out that made life so much better making the grid lines for the mission. I always had trouble moving the waypoint on my tablet. Maybe everyone knew this already but I did not. If you hold your finger on the little white flag thing from the waypoint it moves no problem. I was getting very frustrated trying to find the right spot to touch and found that was the sweet spot. Learn something every day

I started using a stylus to drag the waypoints around because with my clumsy finger I could never quite tell where I was going to wind up, also makes it much easier to make small adjustments. I've used other programs with "drag & drop" graphic elements, but only on a computer with a mouse, which to me is the most precise way of all (but I've never tried my iPad with a mouse).

 

[arto.inetco]

Great job on the psuedo-mapping w the pumpkin...im going to try this once the weather clears up in Michigan (April 2018).

With my autel, Ive used the free version of DroneMapper (DroneMapper Software & Downloads | Drone Mapper Imagery Processing)
to get ortho's on to Google Earth. Its an actual program, which I like. It works with up to 150 pictures, just drop them in the hopper and off it goes...It does tie up your PC a bit though.

For modeling, like making STL, PYL, OBJ files, the best FREE program (not service) I found is called ReGard3d (Home). I hope to develop and compare OBJ files in a program called Cloud Compare in the coming year....looks very promising.

For DEMs, DroneMapper works, but Ive also been using the PrecisionMapper service (Free-5 projects a month), to measure VOLUMES of piles (scrap tires - environmental assessment). its pretty straight forward...draw some polygons and it will determine the cut and fill of your pile.

Ive been using a DJI P4Pro (w mapping apps), and my Autel (guessing on overlap and flight lines).

thanks much for a great and useful post. Someday maybe Autel will release the SDK and we will actually not have to do mapping by these cut/paste/trace methods..seriously, DJI had the Ground Station app back in 2015 for the phantom 2 !!!!.....I love my pumpkin...but im done holding my breath for the FLIR duo, the 1" CMOS camera, the Kestrel, and anything useful to actually attached to the removable gimbal. Hopefully Autel will actually announce something REAL at CES 2018 and surprise us all.

arto

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Here is another thing I would like to try (list is getting longer all the time) with my Agisoft program. Looks pretty cool.

Link to tutorial
How to use Agisoft Photoscan with Melown Cloud

Link to a someones sample
Melown Cloud

Melown Cloud

 

[arto.inetco]

Here is another thing I would like to try (list is getting longer all the time) with my Agisoft program. Looks pretty cool.

Link to tutorial
How to use Agisoft Photoscan with Melown Cloud

Link to a someones sample
Melown Cloud

Melown Cloud

thx, i will check Melown Cloud.thats new to me...Agisoft costs a bunch last time i checked...ive done demos wiright before but cant save, right?....i will look into it again...thx

 

[Jagerbomb52]

thx, i will check Melown Cloud.thats new to me...Agisoft costs a bunch last time i checked...ive done demos wiright before but cant save, right?....i will look into it again...thx

Ya it still costs a bunch but if you know where to look there are are places to get a free copy if you know what I mean

Had photos from a test I did with Agisoft last spring. 65 photos and followed the tutorial on Melown Cloud but after about 10 minutes of processing it rejected it so I guess I did something wrong. This will give me something to do on those cold winter days trying to figure out what I did wrong LOL

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I guess all I had to do was reread the instructions and use the right file to upload LOL
Had the wrong option picked but got it all straight now.
Link to the map.
Melown Cloud


Screen capture

 

[Sundog775]

I guess all I had to do was reread the instructions and use the right file to upload LOL
Had the wrong option picked but got it all straight now.
Link to the map.
Melown Cloud


Screen capture

View attachment 1557

That is really pretty cool, I'll have to give it a try. That must have been one heck of a crash!!

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I found another set of pictures I used last spring. Still snow on the ground so when it gets blended into Melown it looks strange. This time I used the streetview option as this was a city block I did.
Melown Cloud

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Check list, did i bring my check list.................nope. I don't need no frigin check list. lol Yes I do.
Ran a waypoint mission, time lapse set to 10 seconds, speed at 12 MPH good to go.............not. Helps to use the photo button rather then the video button
What a dumpass I was this morning.
So now I have 7 minutes of video looking straight down at the ground. LOL Oh well the trees look nice with the snow on them.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

After running the waypoints again and uploading to mapsmadeeasy here is picture of 1\4 of the tree farm I fly at sometimes.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

 

[Sundog775]

View attachment 1587

Nice - looks like a great way to do a tree count! Did you remove any photos in the turns or rotate any to get a common alignment, or did you just throw them in the hopper to see what came out? How was the weather, any wind?

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I took the first picture out as the EV seemed to be a lot darker. No idea why but the next one was so close I thought it was not a problem getting rid of it. The weather was overcast with 13-18 MPH winds. The x-star handled those no problem. The upper right hand corner seems like it got trimmed but everly other corner seems fine. I just dumped all my photos in and let the program do its thing.
Seems to have worked

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Tree Farm

Melown Cloud

 

[Accrecon]

Information like what is in this thread:
https://autelxpilots.com/threads/3d-mapping-apps.444/

I bought a refurbished XSP about a month or so ago and I am extremely satisfied with it. Awesome flying pumpkin! I'm actually going to be using it on my job so a repository of how to make high quality maps and take high quality ground imagery would be great. I get to fly a drone and get paid for it, I definitely can't complain . I'm sure that other people have the same questions that I do and would benefit since there isn't much info out there of how to do this, specifically for an Autel drone. Not that it's necessarily rocket science, but it doesn't seem as intuitive as having a third party app that allows you to just automate a lot of this away. Maybe that will change at some point once a third party developer creates an app that does that for Autel (?).

Note: I know the basics and I have taken some aerial imagery and georeferenced it for my job. But it would be SUPER helpful if we could come together and create a step by step how to guide and what people have had success with, etc.[/QUOTE

 

[Accrecon]

Hello, been doing mapping and photo stiching for about 6 Months now with My XSP. I do traffic crash reconstruction work and have been using drones ( most I built myself from frame kits) to the latest the XSP which is the first off the shelf drone I have purchased... we are now expanding into Real Estate and construction mapping. I use two different programs to pruduce 2D 3D , some I just photo stich others I use the GEO tags embedded in the Autel Pic uploads to produce 3D maps I can upload into.Google Earth Pro for viewing. Drone Deploy is one program and Maps Made Easy is the other. Drone deploy has limited downloads but has a nice measurement feature that I like because it shows profile elevation changes on the path of measurement (which seems to be very accurate and saves me hours of surveying ) Maps made easy has several download features jpg...tiff..ect which I like, They both have tutorials on how to use their programs. The XSP way point feature and point of interest feature works best when producing 3d images.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Just tried Dronedeploy and I do like it better then maps made easy.

DroneDeploy

 

[Accrecon]

Just tried Dronedeploy and I do like it better then maps made easy.

DroneDeploy

I am in agreement with you about maps made easy, but for crash recon I do like the profile measurement feature of Drone Deploy.

 

[Accrecon]

I am in agreement with you about maps made easy, but for crash recon I do like the profile measurementView attachment 1610 feature of Drone Deploy.

But when it come to sharing results Maps Made Easy is great.