Conducting a corridor flight using DroneDeploy involves several steps to ensure successful planning, execution, and processing. Below is a detailed breakdown of the process, including best practices for each step:
1. Pre-Flight Preparations:
- Project Creation: Please create a new project in DroneDeploy if needed.
- Pre-Flight Checklist: Utilize DroneDeploy's customizable pre-flight checklist, especially if you're an enterprise customer. This helps ensure safety and compliance with your organization's standard operating procedures.
2. Planning the Corridor Flight:
- Selecting Flight Type: Choose the 'Corridor' option from the flight plan list.
- Setting Waypoints: Set the start and end points of the corridor flight on the map.
- Adjusting Flight Path: Use additional waypoints to shape the flight path as needed.
- Corridor Width: Adjust this setting to determine the area covered during the flight—a broader corridor results in more flight legs.
- Flight Altitude: Change the flight altitude to influence the number of legs needed. Higher altitudes require fewer legs but with a trade-off in resolution.
- Terrain Awareness: Use terrain awareness to maintain consistent ground sampling distance for varied elevations.
3. Flight Settings:
- Altitude and Overlap: Adjust these parameters based on the subject and conditions. Higher altitudes and increased overlap can aid in successful mapping.
- Advanced Settings: These include obstacle avoidance, side lap and front lap percentages, flight direction, capture flight speed, and gimbal angle. Adjust these settings to suit the specific requirements of your flight plan.
4. Executing the Flight:
- Visibility and Length: Ensure visibility and check the flight length before starting.
- Central Takeoff Position: Position the takeoff point centrally relative to the start and end points of the corridor.
- Offline Capabilities: If needed, corridor plans can be made available for offline execution.
5. Post-Flight Processing:
- Uploading Data: Process corridor plans as with a standard Map/Model. You can upload via desktop in the 'Upload' tab.
- Viewing Results: After processing, you can view the linear plan in 2D and 3D formats.
6. Best Practices:
- Maintain VLOS: Check visibility and flight length pre-flight and position takeoff centrally.
- Adjusting Settings: Understand and adjust flight settings according to varied conditions and subjects.
- Overlap Considerations: Increase overlap for low flights or homogenous subjects, but be aware of the increased image count and potential stitching issues with moving subjects.
When flying and capturing large corridor or linear maps, it is recommended that you keep your image sets under 3000 images.
Remember, each corridor flight is unique and may require specific adjustments based on the flight's terrain, subject, and purpose. Please always consider these factors when you plan and execute your drone operations.