Mapping

Mapping & photogrammetry

Creating geo-referenced orthomosaics and Digital Elevation Models (DEM) with your swinglet CAM is only a matter of a few clicks. We provide special flight features and a PostFlight service to obtain your results quickly. Have a look at our examples below.

Automated flight

The e-mo-tion software allows you to designate a zone to be systematically photographed by drawing a rectangle over a map. Orientation and size of this rectangle can be modified to cover exactly the desired area. In a second step, you will be asked to select the desired ground resolution and image overlap. Once finished a flight plan according to your desired parameters will be created.

In-flight quality control

The swinglet CAM follows its flight plan and automatically triggers photos while taking into account the wind and its own flight speed. Image footprints are displayed in real-time in e-mo-tion, which enables visual control of ground coverage and photo overlap.

From images to maps

The included PostFlight Suite software allows you to associate each image with its position and orientation. Furthermore, you can access our PostFlight Services to upload the geo-tagged images and obtain a global orthomosaic and Digital Elevation Model (DEM). The web-based service that can automatically process up to 500 images, is fully automated and requires no manual interaction. Geo-referenced orthomosaic and DEM can be obtained with or without ground control points (GCP). The uploading to our PostFlight Services and the initial processing are free of charge. Users order and pay only if satisfied with the quality report generated by the service before final processing of the results. Check our PostFlight Services section in our FAQ for more details.

How does it work?

Use e-mo-tion assisted planning to generate a flight plan.
Launch your swinglet CAM.
Upon landing, transfer the images from the swinglet CAM to your computer
Use the PostFlight Suite to tag the images with GPS and orientation information from the logfile.
(optional) Designate ground control points (GCP) by clicking on the raw images and introducing corresponding coordinates.
Upload geotagged images from the PostFlight Suite to the PostFlight Server (internet connection required).
Consult the automatically generated quality report:
- the quality of image reconstruction (completeness, etc)
- the number and distribution of automatically detected matchingpoints
- the quality of the DEM (completeness, homogeneity) and critical areas with possible impact on orthomosaic
- the quality of the orthomosaic (relative georeferencing accuracy, missing areas, etc.).
Select the output options and launch the final processing (payment through paypal).
The automated process on the PostFlight server (see column on the right) generates the geo-referenced orthomosaic and DEM in a few hours.
Acess PostFlight Services on http://postflight.sensefly.com and download the resulting files.

Automated Orthomosaic & DEM

The software searches for matching points by analyzing all uploaded images.
Those matching points and approximate values of the image position & orientation are used in a bundle block adjustment to reconstruct the exact position and orientation of the camera for every acquired image.
Based on this reconstruction the matching points are verified and their 3D coordinates calculated. The geo-reference system is WGS84, based on GPS measurements from the autopilot during the flight.
Those 3D points are interpolated to form a triangulated irregular network in order to obtain the DEM (Digital Elevation Model).
This DEM is used to project every image pixel and calculate the georeferenced orthomosaic (also called "true orthophoto").
This service is powered by Pix4D.

Don't wait for satellite imagery to be updated:
just create your map with your own swinglet CAM and our PostFlight Services

Examples of area mapping

Note: all these examples are based on a single flight of less than 30 minutes and no ground control points


	area [km²]	ground resolution [cm/px]	flight height [m]	number of images	flight trajectory*	PostFlight report	map (orthomosaic)	3D recons- truction	all files** including raw images & DEM	process. time [hours]
quarry	0.08	3	80	85	display	PDF	display	display	link to folder	1:30
crops	1.02	5	130	312	display	PDF	display	n/a	link to folder	5:00
building site	0.16	5	130	61	display	PDF	display	n/a	link to folder	1:00
shoreline	0.13	3	80	71	display	PDF	display	n/a	link to folder	1:15
golf	0.96	10	140	166	display	PDF	display	n/a	link to folder	2:40
festival	0.39	5	150	62	display	PDF	display	n/a	link to folder	1:00
large zone	11.9	30	840	94	display	PDF	display	n/a	link to folder	1:40
small village***	1.9	10	270	241	display	PDF	display	n/a	link to folder	4:00

*Google Earth^TM plugin required - Use shift-click to re-orient the view and Ctrl-click to zoom.
**KML and KMZ files are viewable with Google Earth^TM. Orthomosaic and DEM files can be imported in standard GIS software such as Global Mapper^TM.

***Dataset courtesy of R-Pod.

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