I use Google maps images of my small piece of land (~5 acres) to help with planning garden layouts, future outbuildings, and stuff. The map isn’t updated very often, and is relatively poor resolution.
I would like to use a drone to produce a map, 2d would be fine if that’s all that’s achievable.
Can anyone confirm if I can do this with a Neo using ODM please? The Neo doesn’t have SDK support so as I understand it I cannot plan an accurate flight route, but presumably I can fly it around myself, capture images manually, and use ODM to stitch them together?
I’m not sure if the accuracy of the Neo GPS is critical to using ODM or not, and whether a really inaccurate flight plan (flown by myself) will make it hard to achieve.
If it makes any difference our land is on a moderate hill.
I think the main problem you are going to have flying and taking photos manually is getting good front and side overlap.
Personally I reckon your best bet would be to pick up a second hand mini 2 or 3 cheap and then use that
As I live here I guess I was thinking if I have a problem I can just go take some more photos as needed, it doesn’t need to be a particularly efficient process. But equally apart from some youtube vids I don’t know the ODM workflow or gotchas, so maybe just trying again isn’t a realistic option.
You could be right, maybe a used drone with support for flight plans is a better option. It’s just still quite a lot more than the £160 for a neo.
Mapping 5 acres manually is certainly a big task..trying to fly in a somewhat orderly manner and capturing images at a reasonably regular interval to get the overlap as @martinr mentioned.
Yes, it can be done. The good part is, you live there. And can take more images to fill in gaps if there are some areas that are missed.
If you attempt it, I would suggest flying at a high altitude (100m or so) to maximize your image area size.
Keep us posted.
Do you have the RC controller for the neo or just your phone? If it’s the phone set up, do you know if you can set a waypoint mission on it? If so theres a free site that allows you to set waypoint missions and load them on to the controller.
Thank you. The DJI Neo (and 4k) don’t support that unfortunately. If I spent a decent amount more then it would make life much easier, but as I only want one map it would work out pretty expensive for that one shot.
I will probably end up enjoying it all too much and upgrade
Don’t fret. Just think of this as an excuse to get something that will at least take waypoints haha. I know my friend did some 1 off mapping with the Neo. He said it was a pain to do, but he got it done by doing some orbits and (very painfully) manually flying grid patterns.
5 acres is not an impossible size area to map manually. like others have stated, just do you best to follow a grid pattern and set the camera to take images intervally.(2 seconds is possible). take more images than you think you need and should be good.
I don’t know what camera modes are available on the Neo, but I’ve been capturing 100-200 acre plots manually by calculating the speed that will give 80% overlap at a specific height and setting that as my maximum speed. I then orient myself, push the stick all the way forward and engage cruise control. After a bit of trial and error, I’ve determined turn rates that will give good sidelap. I set my maximum turn rate to equal the rate needed sidelap at that altitude. It’s tedious, but it works.
The DJI RC 2 controller is compatible with the DJI Neo. I’m not sure if it has waypoint options, but almost every DJI RC controller I’ve seen others use does have waypoints. Combine that with waypoint map and you should be good to go. Here’s the link for waypointmap:
