If you look at the people page of the space, Jeremy might be a good bet since he is one of the owners and the vast majority of the members are esri employees Drone2Map for ArcGIS so my guess is one of them, but I would think your post might stir some attention
Jeremy Schuyler and Molly Zurn would probably be good to start with.
I can also help with the Drone related questions if need be.
thank you!!
Would an Intel Falcon 8 drone be good for Drone2Map?
James
yes we have processed imagery from the Falcon 8
almost any modern drone camera will work fine in Drone2Map (regardless of the physical aircraft body that is carrying it)
Cody B
Cody,
Thanks for the response, from my research the camera just needs to be able to have GPS capability, correct?
We are wanting to create a 3d model of the city and then eventually 3d print a scaled version of the city. Do you think drone to map would be an efficient, easy solution to this project?
James
Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/ghei36>
James
Your comment about cameras is generally correct, although the processing in Drone2Map must have knowledge about the camera (primarily the sensor size and lens focal length) as well as GPS, so if you had some unknown camera (with GPS) you might still run into challenges - but I know we have processed imagery from a Falcon 8 in the past, so I am ~90% sure this will work "out of the box". However, I will admit I don't know intimate details of the Falcon 8, and if there are multiple cameras available, there is a SLIM chance we wouldn't have info about that camera in our database.
There are ways to work around this but if in doubt and you want to be sure BEFORE buying the drone and camera, I'd suggest you request 3 sample images (ideally taken above ground, with overlap) and send them to me, and I can test and confirm
As to your overall project, there are a lot more issues to discuss - but it's good to know where you're going. Here are some BRIEF thoughts, not intended to answer everything you need to consider:
If you look at this example http://esriurl.com/EsriCampus3D it will illustrate some of these issues.
I hope that is helpful
Cody B
Cody,
Thanks for taking the time to go through that overview.
To clarify our END Goal is to produce a 3d virtual model of our historic downtown area. This area is only a few blocks, less than 1 square mile. Then the industrial and Tech parks. So only targeted areas for the drone.
We fly photography and LIDAR every 3 years. It is currently in progress for the new set. I have made a model in the past of clipped building footprints and the topography with some of the LIDAR, but that still only produces extruded features with randomized or targeted facades. I don't have the time or manpower to go through and create exact windows, material type etc. This leads me to the drone2map software. It seems from what I have read this product would produce a realistic virtual model more efficiently in less time.
As far as the 3d printer. the preferred file type would be a .STL file, but we can export that .OBJ file to what we need. Currently we have a Makerbot Replicator + , but in the future we will be looking to purchase a larger print bed. Side bar to this, What would be my best platform to take lidar and other parametric data to produce a virtual 3d model. I used City engine in the past, but it was a bit of a learning curve. Can everything I need to do for the 3d model be done in Pro?