New · photogrammetry and remote sensing

Practise drone photogrammetry and remote sensing in a UAV simulator

Fly a camera survey and study it like a technician.

Three cameras —20 MP RGB, 5-band multispectral and thermal— and a crop field with hidden pests, water stress and a leak. Plan by GSD and overlap, fly in AUTO with distance-based triggering, process the orthomosaic and look for the problems with NDVI, NDRE or temperature.

You see what the camera captures while you fly.

A semi-transparent beam marks the footprint of each photo and the ground is coloured by coverage: how many valid photos see each point and where there are only blurred or oblique ones. When you finish, the quality check tells you what went wrong and prepares only the passes that need repeating.

Altitude, line spacing and trigger distance calculated from the GSD and overlaps
DO_SET_CAM_TRIGG_DIST and DO_CHANGE_SPEED in the mission, exportable to .waypoints
Blur, oblique photos, overlaps broken by the wind and gaps, measured photo by photo

Survey over the practice field: the camera beam down to the ground and the coverage coloured by number of photos

Remote sensing lab with the field NDVI, the pest hotspots marked, the histogram with threshold and the quality check

A lab for finding what the naked eye cannot see.

Bands, false colour, NDVI, NDRE, GNDVI, SAVI, NDWI, thermal and material classification, with probe, histogram and threshold. Mark the zones, press Evaluate and compare with the ground truth of the field.

Radiometric calibration with a panel before and after the flight, and an irradiance sensor
Time of day, sun, clouds and wind change what each camera measures
Five scored exercises: coverage, pests, water stress, irrigation leak and materials

PDF report

Mission summary, quality check, each layer with its scale, your zones with coordinates and the exercise score.

Interactive web page

A single .html file with the layers, the photo footprints, the zones and a value probe, to open in any browser.

GeoJSON and video

Zones and footprints in WGS84 for your GIS, and an animation of the survey with the photos covering the mosaic.

AI study

Captain Pitot looks at the layers and your zones and tells you what he sees, what it might be in the field and what to change on the next flight.

From flight plan to result: what you practise

The complete workflow of a drone survey, with a simulated field whose ground truth is known so that you can check your conclusions.

Survey planning

You draw the area, choose camera, GSD and overlaps, and the planner calculates altitude, spacing between passes and trigger distance.

GSD

The ground size that one pixel represents. It depends on flight altitude, focal length and sensor pixel size: you choose the GSD and the simulator gives you the altitude.

Front and side overlap

Front overlap, between consecutive photos in a pass, is set by the trigger distance; side overlap, between passes, by the line spacing. The simulator warns you if the wind or the route breaks it.

Survey pattern planning

Survey with DO_SET_CAM_TRIGG_DIST and DO_CHANGE_SPEED in the mission, flown in AUTO and exportable to .waypoints for Mission Planner or QGroundControl.

Orthomosaic

The survey photos are processed into a simulated orthomosaic, with a quality check for coverage, blurred or oblique photos and gaps.

NDVI and other indices

With the multispectral camera: NDVI = (NIR − red) / (NIR + red), plus NDRE, GNDVI, SAVI and NDWI, to find pests and water stress.

Thermography

With the thermal camera, the temperature of the field to locate the irrigation leak and stressed areas; time of day, sun and clouds change what it measures.

Interpreting results

You mark the zones, press Evaluate and compare with the ground truth of the field. Captain Pitot explains what he sees and what to change on the next flight.

Simulated results. The images, indices and orthomosaic are generated in the simulator to practise the method. They do not replace photogrammetric processing software or a real survey with its ground control points. To train inspection missions, go to professional drone missions.