Drone Images processing software

[b_clive]

Dear all,

I am looking in investing in a drone mapping solution for my business. I am finding it very difficult though to decide on which software package out there is best for my solution. Pix4d is highly recommended. I only need software to georeference and stitch all my photos together and then export this to a 3d pointcloud to import it into other various software which I already use like Leica cyclone 3dr.

What could be the best, most effective solution for me without breaking the bank?

[JNally]

Pix 4D mapper will do what you need. If used correctly gives good results. Then just take the .las from that and use it in what you need.

You can also rent it on a per month basis which means you can hire it for when you need it.

Also pretty user friendly once you get to know the basics.

[Dsmith9005]

We have used Dronedeploy and Pix4d. But have been trying out Agisoft Metashape and I think it beats em all.

[Kruse]

We pay for a service through Propeller Aero and use their Aeropoints. We have a few people in the company that use Pix4D and I agree that it's a great product, but for the vast majority of projects completing daily/weekly flights, Propeller Aero works well for us since we can also host the data on Propeller's platform and pull off the LAZ files as we need them. I'm not totally sure on the cost for the processing tokens, but we never do any of the processing on our local machines. Just upload the images, metadata, and sync the Aeropoints and it's all processed for us to our project's coordinate system. Between the Aeropoints and additional check points on our sites for control, we're very consistent with ~1cm of potential error.

We have one project completing daily flights with a WingtraONE Gen 2, and considering every flight covers 300+ acres and about 2000 images (each image is ~45MP), that's a lot of data to process and store, so Propeller works really well for our needs. Definitely not the cheapest though .