Contents
Roof dimensions
Suitable for:
- Solar
- Architecture and crafts
- Drone service providers
Single-family home with DJI Matrice 4E/T, Mavic 3E/T/M, or similar
Multi-family homes, commercial or industrial buildings with DJI Matrice 4E/T, Mavic 3E/T/M or similar
Single-family home with DJI Mini 4 Pro, Mini 3 Pro, Air 3S, or similar
Other drones without POI mode (manual circular flight)
Open space, property, or terrain
Suitable for:
- Surveyors
- Solar
- Drone service providers
- Crane and heavy haulage industry
- Agriculture and forestry
- Gardening and landscaping
- Architecture and crafts
DJI Matrice 4E/T, Mavic 3E/T/M or similar
Building surveying
High-end surveying with the Matrice 4E's Smart 3D Capture function
Best practices & tips
Choosing the right flight altitude
As a rule of thumb, we recommend a flight altitude of approximately 35 m above the terrain. This allows you to avoid most obstacles, such as trees, while keeping the distance to the object relatively low.
In general, a shorter distance to the object results in higher accuracy. This means that for the best accuracy, you should fly at a height of 25 m above the object, for example. However, this increases the amount of data and also the recording time.
And PLEASE NOTE: If the distance to the object is too small, the survey may fail completely because the so-called "overlap" of the images becomes too small (see figure below).
For larger areas, flight heights of 50-60 m or more are therefore recommended .
Display facades well
The facade should be clearly visible in the images. A good guideline is a gimbal tilt of 60-70° (90° = vertical).
RTK-capable drone for better survey results
The potential for errors due to poor GNSS positions can be massively reduced by using an RTK-capable drone. This reduces the GNSS error from 30-100 cm to 1-3 cm.
Fly the POI circle centrally above the object
We often see circular flights being performed offset from the object. It is essential that the object is positioned as centrally as possible between the photos.
Final checklist
- Images saved? (NO video!)
- Are all details of the roof clearly visible?
- Do the photos look high quality? (e.g., they should not be blurry)
- Do the photos cover and focus on all objects that need to be included in the 3D model?
- [if reconstruction of facades is desired:] Are facades visible?