topic Re: Drone Processing Software in Civil 3D Forum

Drone Processing Software

AllenJessup — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 12:44:30 GMT

Is anyone using DJI Terra? Our vendor says they can't get the specified Pix4D Survey + Matic. They say the Terra Pro software is equivalent. But I Don't see much about it or who might be using it.

BTW Anyone using ReCap for processing Drone Data?

Re: Drone Processing Software

Todd_Rogers — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 13:34:38 GMT

Yes, I use it. It works great!! Super fast processing and easy to use. Sorry to say it, ReCap is FAR from all other software out there. It's not good at all.

Re: Drone Processing Software

Saravanan_pcl — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 17:22:44 GMT

Terra is a good processing software and its super fast. It's just not used quite popular like Pix4D or Sitescan or Drone deploy.

Re: Drone Processing Software

AllenJessup — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 20:14:53 GMT

@Todd_Rogers @Saravanan_pcl

Thanks for the replies. Makes me feel a little better.

Re: Drone Processing Software

AllenJessup — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 20:40:18 GMT

Just getting training on our new drone and the Terra software. Looks good. Did Orthos yesterday and Obliques today. Lidar tomorrow. Fun stuff!

Re: Drone Processing Software

Todd_Rogers — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 20:55:24 GMT

Old dawg learning new tricks! I like it!

Re: Drone Processing Software

Pointdump — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 21:16:47 GMT

Hi Allen,
What camera are you using for the LiDAR?
Dave

Re: Drone Processing Software

AllenJessup — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:01:49 GMT

Hi Dave,

We have the DJI Zenmuse L1 for lidar and the Zenmuse P1 (SP) for orthos and obliques. The L1 has a camera to colorize the point cloud.

Re: Drone Processing Software

AllenJessup — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:10:40 GMT

@Todd_Rogers

Todd,

Do you have Terra generate a 3D model from the obliques? If you do. What file format do you export. It defaulted to a JSON file and it looks like that doesn't import to Civil 3D. I didn't recognize any of the available export either.

Thanks.

Re: Drone Processing Software

rl_jackson — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:19:12 GMT

@AllenJessup

Allen,

In my past use of orthos from a DJI drone we used TIF files that were processed with Pix4D, at the time there were issues with SID files that exceeded a certain size coming out of Pix4D, I believe it was to due with an incompatibility with the SID and C3D at the time. ~circa 2018

Re: Drone Processing Software

AllenJessup — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:28:03 GMT

@rl_jackson

Yes. We got a TIF and a TFW file for the orthos. Just don't know what to do with the 3D model from the obliques. We're not even sure if we need it since we'll be flying Lidar also.

Re: Drone Processing Software

Todd_Rogers — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:31:25 GMT

Yeah, if you have an RTK module, you probably won't need anything else from the orthos. However, if you want to play around with the orthos. You can push out the point cloud as an .las file or other. The video below is what got me through the whole process. It also goes over how to establish your ground control points...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAL8wuEarqI&t=1364s

Re: Drone Processing Software

AllenJessup — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:45:58 GMT

Thanks Todd. The drone is RTK capable but we didn't buy the base station. We're thinking we'll maily use ground control.

Re: Drone Processing Software

aolsenV5HRX — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:07 GMT

I'm having trouble getting the right file types out of DJI terra when I export them. What file types did Civil 3d accept for importing the point cloud image? So far I can't seem export them as .rcp or .rcs files. I'm flying an L2 lidar on a Mattrice 300 and processing in DJI terra. (ultimate goal of using the images in a CAD program) Thanks!

Re: Drone Processing Software

Todd_Rogers — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:26:11 GMT

You can use several. The issue is, you have to use ReCap to import them and then save them as an .rcp file.

Re: Drone Processing Software

aolsenV5HRX — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:36:38 GMT

Thanks! I will give it a looK! This is such cool stuff.