How It Works

Powerful processing with minimal intervention

In order to provide data as quickly as possible, we work with a network of dealers and have created an automated system that is designed from the ground up to not rely on third-party tools or software. This means that there is no wasted processing time. This allows us to guarantee a 24-hour turnaround on all standard data products.

We created four pieces of software to make this processing happen: Guidance, Uploader, web portal, and data processor. Additionally, we designed a camera mounting system for easy data collection.

1

Upload Field Boundary

Before any data collection can begin a field boundary must be entered into our portal. This boundary is used to create flight plans with suggested time windows for flying to minimize shadows and specifies the area of interest for the processing of NDVIs.

2

Fly & Collect Data

Use Guidance to fly and collect data from airplanes or dedicated drone software.

3

Upload Images

Using the Uploader, images are sent to our servers for processing.

4

Processing

Using the uploaded images our automated systems because to align, stitch, and orthorectify the imagery into a single orthomosaic

5

Georeference

The orthomosaic is georeferenced using either ground control points (GCPs). If ground control points were not the orthomosaic is geore georeferenced ecned to a basemap.

6

Create Data Products

The georeferenced orthomosaic is analyzed to create different vegetation indexes (NDVIs). All orthomosaics are available for download in: raw format, jpeg, 10 class classification field report, point shapefile, PDF map (for PDF map application), zip map (reduced version for various applications), and a kmz map.

7

Quality Control

All data is manually inspected to ensure that there are no defects in any data products. These include cloud shadows, ghosting, and other image artifacting.

8

Deliver

After quality control, an email is sent to the clients notifying them that their data has finished processing, along with a link to where that data can be viewed and downloaded through our portal.

Software & Hardware

Web Portal

Our web portal serves several purposes and is where you specify the area you want data collected for and download the finished products.

Flight plan and field overview of Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas

Dashboard homepage showing fields, survey date, and processed date

False Color orthomosaic overlay using 4 band imagery from a PhaseOne camera

Overlay Green Blue orthomosaic vegetation index from a 4 band imagery taken from a PhaseOne camera

Guidance

Guidance has two functions, aid the pilot by telling them where to fly and triggering the camera to collect data.

Once a flight plan is created in the portal, Guidance will be able to download the field and create a flight plan. This flight plan tells the pilot where to fly to ensure the field has full coverage.

Once a camera is connected guidance will run a camera calibration to ensure that the focus and other settings are correct.

Group different fields into flight plans to fly

Show plane location and heading over fields overplayed upon basemap

Images taken over fields with flight guidelines

Uploader

The Uploader is used to upload images to our servers for processing. It will upload any jpeg image that has location data embedded in the image or Guidance log file.

After the images are selected, select the data products you want to be generated and click queue.

Select data products to be created from the imagery

Data Processor

Our data process is responsible for turning your images into orthomosaics. It was built from the ground up and optimized to run on our servers without using other 3rd party software. This ensures there is no wasted processing time.

Servers

All data is processed on our private servers. This ensures that our technicians have easy access to solve any hardware or data issues. It also allows us to scale up and to process projects of any size as needed.

Camera Mount

Roboflight’s Camera Mount is designed to attach to the wing strut of most planes, safely and quickly without damaging the plane.

Using this mount you can attach most over the counter cameras.