Conducting Inspections with DroneDeploy
DroneDeploy offers a complete end-to-end solution to help you consistently detect problems before they become more costly and to streamline coordination within your team so that you can minimize disputes and more quickly resolve the field notes you find.
Using Field Notes for Inspections
Create Field Notes for inspections on media and annotations. The steps below are for creating Field Notes on Photos, but the same process can be applied to other media types.
Click on the media type, then navigate to the specific image depicting the problem.
Click on a specific photo to enter the photo view. Then select the Field Note creation icon to create a Field Note.
Then click an area in the photo to create the Field Note
Fill out the Type, Status, Summary, and Severity. Then click Done.
An orange photo marker will denote the field note.
Inspections in 3D
Once your data has been uploaded and processed, conduct your immersive 3D inspection from the comfort of your office. First, view the 3D model and then click the "Inspect" button at the top of the model to switch to inspection mode.
When you are in inspection mode, you can click on points within the 3D model to open high-resolution photos of that location. Then, zoom and pan into the original source photo to look for problems. To exit an individual photo, either click the 'X' in the top right corner of the image or press the 'Esc' key.
When you spot problems that need attention, select the nearest photo to enter the photo view.
Enter the image view, then select the Field Note icon.
Then, click and drag to draw a box around the problem that needs attention. Label the field note and provide any additional information in the Summary section.
Field Note Types Include, but are not limited to:
- Broken Part
- Crack
- Debris
- Drainage Problem
- Erosion
- Hot Spot
- Incomplete Work
- Leak
- Missing Part
- Other
- Plan Deviation
- Rust
- Safety Hazard
- Stressed Vegetation
- Vegetation Encroachment
- Weather Damage
To exit inspection mode, just click the X in the top right corner of the date bar.
Review Open Field Notes
Use the Field Note List to review project field notes, track progress toward field note resolution and identify trends in field notes across your project. You can filter field notes by type, status and date created to more easily find and review specific field notes, and you can use the visibility checkmarks to hide and show field note markers on the map.
Clicking on any field note within the list will open more information about that field note. However, the information you see will depend upon what viewing mode you are in and when the field notes were created.
- If you are in 3D mode viewing a field note created on that map date, you will see the field note information along with the original photo in 3D context
- If you are in 3D mode viewing a field note created on a previous map date or if you are in 2D mode, you will see the field note information, including a photo preview of the original image
- If you are on mobile, you will not be able to see field note detail information and will be prompted to go to the desktop. (You can also view the field note report on mobile)
Once you’ve confirmed that a field note has been resolved, you can change its status from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed.’ This will cause the field note marker to appear gray on the map.
Automatically Generate a Field Note Report
Easily share the results of your inspection with your team by automatically generating an inspection report. The inspection report includes the map locations of all of the field notes so that workers can easily find where each field note is, as well as close-up imagery and all of the field note details they need to address.
To view the Field Note report, go to the "Report" section. You'll see a printable report of all of the field notes created for that project.
If you want to report only a subset of all field notes -- for example, only open field notes or field notes of a particular type -- you can use the filters in the sidebar to customize your report.
Have an integration with BIM 360 or Procore? Learn more about how you leverage drawing and issue syncing with these integrations.