ArcGIS Drone2Map and Site Scan for ArcGIS: How do they differ from one another?
Many of us use drone imagery for teaching, research and other proposes. Drone imagery fill gaps in data needs, between the aerial data captures and terrestrial data captures.
Esri provides two products to process drone imagery: ArcGIS Drone2Map and Site Scan for ArcGIS. So what are the differences between these two products?
In a nutshell, ArcGIS Drone2Map is a desktop-based drone imagery processing software. While Site Scan for ArcGIS is a cloud-based drone image processing software.
ArcGIS Drone2Map
Since this is a desktop-based product, it has ability to process the drone data without the need of internet connection. It is a good solution when you are on the field with your laptop and want to have a quick look of the result. Once connected to internet, the drone imagery can then be published to ArcGIS Online and/or ArcGIS Enterprise.
Site Scan for ArcGIS
As a cloud-based drone imagery processing, it provides a complete end-to-end drone mapping software from drone flight planning, pre-flight checklist, fleet management, process, analytics, and sharing. Unlimited amounts of drone flight data can be processed into 2D and 3D outputs through a scalable cloud environment. Because the data is in the cloud, it is a lot more scalable and there is no necessity to publish the data or upload the data. It can be immediately accessible anywhere and by any devices.
Map Production from ArcGIS Drone2Map
ArcGIS Drone2Map can create 2D and 3D products, including generating 3D point clouds and textured meshes. It is integrated with ArcGIS platform and provides some focused analytical tools such as generating contours , volumetric calculations, viewing spectral indices, etc. It’s also important to emphasize that Drone2Map is built on the ArcGIS Pro framework, and provides a single button experience to open the data products within ArcGIS Pro. The dynamic orthomosaics generated by the mosaic dataset can be used both within Drone2Map and also ArcGIS Pro. ArcGIS Drone2Map has a very streamlined workflow for simplified publishing of data products to ArcGIS Online and Enterprise.
Map Production from Site Scan for ArcGIS
In similar fashion, Site scan for ArcGIS is a processing platform that takes drone imagery and processes and create the outputs, however because it is developed as end to end solution, it comes with:
- Site Scan flight for ArcGIS, an iPad application, where you create pre-flight checklist and flight plans for others to execute and for controlling the drone flight. This is an industry-leading application with many advanced features. In fact this a free app to download.
- The post flight processing is controlled by a web application called Site Scan Manager, which includes tools for image analysis and reporting
- Site Scan Manager also includes tools for image analysis and reporting, and a very important
- Fleet Management capability to enable organizations to keep track of their drones, batteries, and pilots
- All of the processing is performed in the cloud, and provides a very simple workflow for publishing to ArcGIS Online or Enterprise,
- Since Site Scan is used heavily in the world of engineering and construction, it has an interface for sharing data with Autodesk BIM 360.
Resources
Check 2D and 3D Drone Collection, Processing and Analysis with ArcGIS Drone2Map and Site Scan for ArcGIS – Recording archive from Education Chat September 2021 edition, featuring Jeremiah Johnson, Imagery Solutions Architect from Esri.
ArcGIS Drone2Map
- Drones2map product site
- Drone2Map Learn Path: https://learn.arcgis.com/en/projects/get-started-with-arcgis-drone2map/
Site Scan for ArcGIS
- Site Scan product site
- Reality Capture and Site Scan for ArcGIS plenary video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V4rB7gYg8Y - Esri Australia UC2020 Site Scan end-to-end workflow:
https://youtu.be/JCOEAJSxSiY
GeoNet (community, questions, blog, ideas)
Pricing
Education pricing is available for both products. Contact highered@esri.com to get information.