Drone
Photogrammetry / Mapping

Drone Photogrammetry for Surveys and Inspections

The Technique

Thanks to greater accuracy in drone navigation systems, computing performance and onboard photographic sensors, aerial photogrammetry by drone is highly performant and enables precision drone mapping, whatever the size and configuration of the terrain.

Easier and cheaper than using imagery from a manned aircraft, drone photogrammetry provides professional-grade material for aerial surveys and inspections, enabling centimeter precision scaling, and measurement of distances, surface areas, and volumes.

Drone mapping from photogrammetry also allows us to easily create 3D models that can be rotated over 360 degrees on all axis to achieve a unique point of view of the photographed buildings, artwork, structures, quarries, bridges, roads, etc...

CamFly Films frequently uses aerial photogrammetry to gain higher zooming capabilities for surveyors in need of high-precision imaging of the inspected assets. Many industry sectors are using drone photogrammetry, such as:

Construction - Agriculture - Landscaping - Roofing - Insurance claims - Solar - Mining - Energy - Telecommunications...

Please check the real-life examples below and see how the technique can apply to your project.

Request a Quote

Measuring Distances, Surfaces, Volumes, Elevation

From Left to right, different options to display and process the data, choosing to highlight volumes, relative height through colour cast or/and instant measurements, 2D map for a global vision, enabling powerful zooming to display tiny details, or even processing the map to create a 3D model, or tracing all roof sections of a building and create a report of all dimensions, areas, and pitches of the roof with a 99.4% accuracy.

The tools we use in drone mapping

CamFly films trust DJI drones for their stability and reliability, speed and battery life, featuring High resolution 20Mp camera sensors, shooting 4K video and Raw stills.

On the software side we use applications such as "Pix4D" or“Dronedeploy" for their high quality results, ease of use in the field for mission planning and execution, share and export capabilities to industry standard program such as AutoCAD.

This is an example of Before/After situation related to tree cutting.Taking and stitching together Geo tagged pictures allowed to match Google Earth maps and proceed to compare terrain changes. The coloured visualisation of the zone helps to show clearly the deforested land.

2D Drone Mapping Survey

To get a high-definition aerial picture of the area, allowing us to zoom in to cm scale details, we fly the drone at a low altitude (40m in the example below) following a pre-defined path, taking automatically pictures of the zone. This is the definition of photogrammetry. The application then reconstructs the whole area, providing an ultra-high resolution scalable picture available in GeoTIFF, jpeg, and pdf, las, xyz, dxf/shp, obj, rcp.

The size of the area is virtually unlimited and can be fragmented into several sessions if necessary. Drone photogrammetry and mapping provide useful information in Construction, Agriculture, mining, Solar farms, and all sectors of surveying and inspections. It is also faster, more cost-effective, and safer than manned surveys.

Request a Quote

Drone aerial mapping allows to show the whole area and on demand access to details that would be impossible to evaluate on a conventional aerial picture

CamFly films can also operate drone mapping for smaller areas, construction site, warehouse, commercial and industrial roofing, making measurements of distances, surfaces, volumes, elevation, and share the results in real time with the client off site.

Below is an example of 2D drone mapping from photogrammetry techniques using about 40 pictures stitched together, giving a global vision of the area, but enabling the viewer to zoom in to the point to see clearly details normally invisible at that distance, suggesting here many possible purposes for an aerial drone site survey.