Bandwagon's Drones Thread

  • Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and give us your nominations!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
Kais_sl said:
If it's ag then farmers are about to start planting if they haven't already. Probably want a look at heat maps. Construction is heating up too.

Unrelated, i was asked to fly for a demo day that a local business centric drone users group is hosting at a tiny nearby airport. There's a NOTAM already set for the event and local FAA reps will be there to answer questions for the public.
Click to expand...
The new COA for commercial operators that was just released on April 29th SOUNDS like we are able to fly near airports with a NOTAM and ATO contact, but we just got a call from someone in DC that clarified that a special COA needs to be applied for, which replaces the old process of a signed LOA on file. Pretty annoyed that hobbyist can fly right next to the runway with a phone call, but we can't even fly at 100ft with insurance, licensed pilots, etc. That just cost us a $3,600 job this morning.
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
Picasso_sl said:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/quarr...cle-title-like
Click to expand...
I know we can generate outputs for autodesk, but I've never actually played around in it. I have a list of software that I want to pick up....I'm debating on picking up something like AutoDesk. I don't feel like I have the expertise to actually take advantage of it, though, so it's probably better to just give those files to the people that can use it.
 
P

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
Civil3d is the one you want for volume calcs and possible grading plans or designs. It's intuitive i think but I've been using it 5 years if you torrent it to try it I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. I think it can import .las .dem and a few other surface types directly. From there you could find volumes such as your stockpile in minutes or if they laid back the quarry slope at 2:1 etc.
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
I'm curious to compare the volume calcs for the same data set, in different programs. If I uploaded a DEM, could you calculate volume in Civil3d?
 
Borzak

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
25,986
34,048
I'm not sure what you are wanting to do, but I would avoid an AutoDesk product. I use them day in and day out for the last 27 years. Sooooooo much of thier product now is bloated beyond belief because they are still backward compatible with the pull down menu, the ribbon, side menu, digitizing menu etc from the last 30+ years...If you look on the net to find out how to do the easiest possible thing in the world you'll get 5 answers that do the same exact thing and depending on which version you have AND which way it was configured they all do the same thing. You'll chase around in circles to accomplish the smallest of stuff. It's the biggest complaint in the autodesk community now, they ditched the menu system that had been there 35 years, then went all ribbon, then they ditched it, then they made it optional etc...aggravating. Pick one.

But lots of good stuff out there that will take a .dwg or .dxf file that was made for autocad.

On another related deal the FAA reauthorization bill is being debated in congress now. Looks like a 400 foot max altitude and X number of miles from an airport unless you get a commercial license and will fall under the FAA. Really sucks because a lot of small airports actually are RC flying fields and a caller list out any full scale traffic. Also 400' is less than the altitude achieved on glider winch launch.

Aggravating, it's brought the giant scale radio control industry to a halt since the first of the year. Nobody wants to spend a few thousand on a new plane, or a new engine with all this up in the air. They really seem hell bent on lumping drones and modeling into one deal.
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
Those fields should be able to continue (except maybe washington DC) with a COA, but maybe not above 400'.
As pissed as I am with having to deal with the FAA on some of this nitpicky stuff, I do feel bad for the guys that have been flying RC for 30 years and are having to deal with this stuff now. Our local AMA field is at the old veteran's memorial in town, which is about 3 miles away from the airport. They're all older guys and are talking about just moving it so they don't have to mess with this anymore.
 
Borzak

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
25,986
34,048
Bandwagon_sl said:
Those fields should be able to continue (except maybe washington DC) with a COA, but maybe not above 400'.
As pissed as I am with having to deal with the FAA on some of this nitpicky stuff, I do feel bad for the guys that have been flying RC for 30 years and are having to deal with this stuff now. Our local AMA field is at the old veteran's memorial in town, which is about 3 miles away from the airport. They're all older guys and are talking about just moving it so they don't have to mess with this anymore.
Click to expand...
I don't know about the 400' deal. Like I mentioned a glider that does a winch launch starts at more than 400'. I really don't know the altitude of when I fly. Just keep it to where I can see it and control it. The members of the AMA aren't really happy with the "leadership" of the AMA. Been that way for a while. The members really have been pushing for a long time to separate drone use and modeling use. Also they suffer from having a leadership of a bunch of really old guys which shouldn't be a suprise. Right now Joe Nall is kind of up in the air this year with all this crap, which is the largest fly in for giant scale airplanes in SC each year. Couple thousand partipants on hand and normally a couple of full scale aerobatic planes and warbirds doing demonstrations off of the same field.

I watched an hour long discussion on the FAA reauthorization last week and still don't know which way congress is headed. But they were dead right when they said nobody wants to be on the news in front of a downed airplane from a drone or something similar and will throw all kins of useless stuff at it.
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
Picasso_sl said:
Yes.
Click to expand...
Just sent you a link to the DSM from the quarry. I don't remember if that one is cropped or anything.

Do you do GIS work for a living? I'd love to be able to have someone look at some of our outputs and give input.
I know there are a lot of lurkers in this thread and I usually get PMs instead of posts here, but I'd rather have an actual discussion going on these things, instead of a blog post.



Borzak - I don't even know what to predict any more with the way they're going. I THINK the involvement of the DOT was a good idea, but I'm looking at it from the commercial side. Considering the freedom that hobbyist are used to, I don't see any outcome from all of this that they're going to be happy with, or at least satisfied. Pretty sad.
 
P

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
GIS is usually auxiliary to what I do. I'll pull in a lot of data from other places to design sites, trails, roads, etc. Basically enough to get what I need into and out of globalmapper and civil3d to have it georeferenced. So i'm certainly no authority.
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
Gotcha. I'm getting better at it, but definitely not anywhere close to proficient.

What's your opinion on global mapper? I've used it a bit and really liked it, that was the next one I was planning on getting a full license to. Price isn't too bad compared to other stuff, too.
 
P

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
For my purposes it was perfect, very intuitive and affordable. Cad is terrible at transformations in coordinate systems so it fills a huge gap.

I have arcmap at my current job and i couldn't figure out how to get the length of a line the other day, they i asked a gis employee there and they couldn't either because i didn't have the right toolbox. Total bs and it's like 4k a license.
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
I've also discovered that GIS programs and just terminology in general is very difficult to google-Fu. Half the time you can't even figure out how to word the search.
Good to know, though. Let me know how that xyz file looks. I know there is a misalignment in the middle on the south side. It was because we flew the west half 2 days later, and about 2 hours earlier in the day.
 
P

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
Xyz looked good. I'm sure gm can convert that raster to a dem but i just don't want to learn it atm.

Have you flown in places with other elevation data available for comparison?
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
I have and it looks "good", but "good" isn't good enough as a tool. I haven't imported both into GIS to compare the elevations at the same time, though. I did finally find a survey company in the area that is interested in working together. We just need a joint project so they can see the accuracy, when using their GCPs.

The last two days felt like a marathon, especially today. About 8 hours of driving all over the state, an hour of taking ground shots, and maybe a grand total of an hour of flying. Yesterday was 4 1/2 hours on the road, 22 minutes of flying. So glad I changed the pricing before all this came in. Everyone is just trying to do a per-acre charge, but the time to do a job can change so much with the smallest request. "I have 120 acres, but it's spread out over 12 different plots". "Can you do a little higher resolution than 4cm GSD?"

I'm no excel wizard and this thing is an ugly work in progress, but at least (almost) every quote makes sense for us right now. It's actually worth it to travel for small plots now, or at least a little bit of profit.
Screenshots of the mess with a few things blurred out.
rrr_img_130620.jpg
rrr_img_130621.jpg
 
A

a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
29,763
That is great looking actually because you can really show a customer what they are getting from you.

Figuring out the moving parts like that and quantifying them makes you a very legit business compared to just a bunch of hobbyists screwing around.
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
a_skeleton_03_sl said:
That is great looking actually because you can really show a customer what they are getting from you.

Figuring out the moving parts like that and quantifying them makes you a very legit business compared to just a bunch of hobbyists screwing around.
Click to expand...
Thanks a_skeleton_03. I would like to have an account actually look at it after awhile. I want to spend a little time comparing it to actual jobs first, though. I logged all of our times yesterday (take off, time in air, battery at return to home and land, land time, etc). The last flight of the day had about 18mph winds, so we used 2 batteries when I predicted 1. This is all of the stuff I'm trying to add into the back page, and make sure I can change it in the future as we upgrade the aircraft.

I'm GUESSING we won't have to have a licensed pilot & VO for too much longer, and some of the drone upgrades we're looking at will be more efficient. Since the prices we're quoting are typically right in line with what people are expecting, I don't want them to see the back end of the calculations....The on-site wages will end up dropping down to about $18/hour instead of $42, and the flight time and ground coverage of the drone will get better. I'll change the markup % to keep the price fairly steady.

I worked for a guy ~14 years ago that was a CFO and Accountant, that decided to buy his own small business. His pricing spreadsheet was amazing, and I'm TRYING to match his level of detail. Eventually, I'll add in insurance costs, certification costs, expected lifespan of aircraft and payloads, etc. Or maybe it'll get to the point where we just need to have a professional do it.
wink.png

I don't really know what I'm doing here, but I know where the line is between making money and losing money. That's good enough for now I guess.
 
Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Kolohe
<Silver Donator>
24,596
66,109
The flight on Wednesday was for a school a few hours away. I guess they don't know what to do with the soft copy, so they want a binder printed out with all their test plots.

I can't share those maps (this map is the one we always test on), but I'm working on our printed deliverables. Anyone that's used to seeing these have some feedback? I haven't really messed with print composer in GIS before.

rrr_img_130663.jpg

.
rrr_img_130664.jpg
 
Vepil

Vepil

Gamja
<Bronze Donator>
5,855
24,544
Picasso, basic arcmap has a measure function but you should have been able to id (blue circle with the lower case i) the line and got a shape length.

Also here is an image showing the basic measure command found on the tool bar named "Tools"

rrr_img_130688.jpg
 
P

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
The problem was my shit wasnt in a projected coordinate system so it disabled some basic features i later found out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.