First, you’ll need to create a survey flight pattern for your drone.
The drone takes off and flies this survey pattern. A mounted camera takes photos the entire time.
There are a few critical requirements for any survey:
- The photos must be accurately geotagged either during or after the survey flight.
- The camera must be oriented orthogonal to the ground for the duration of the survey.
- Photos must be consistently spaced throughout the survey flight. Necessary spacing varies depending on the survey type. See ‘Survey Parameters’ below.
A single survey can consist of a single flight or multiple consecutive flights over a contiguous area.
For a single-flight survey…
If your photos are automatically geotagged in flight, simply put all the relevant survey photos into a zip file before uploading to FarmLens™.
If you are using FarmLens Uploader™ to assist with geotagging, the time range of your photo set must fall within the time range of the flight log (recorded by your ground control device). To ensure this, always conform to this sequence: Before the survey, 1) start recording the flight log and 2) initiate camera triggering; After the survey 1) stop camera triggering and 2) end the flight log recording. This way, FarmLens Uploader™ will always be able to find the correct flight log to geotag your photo set.
For a multi-flight survey…
If your photos are automatically geotagged in flight, include the relevant survey photos from each individual flight in a single zip file before uploading to FarmLens™.
If you are using FarmLens Uploader™, rather than creating separate photo sets and flight logs for each flight, create a single photo set and flight log for the entire series of flights. Find details on how to do this here.