NATIONAL AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF HONDURAS

UNIVERSITY TECHNICIAN IN GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

WITH EMPHASIS ON CADASTRE.

FACULTY OF SPACE SCIENCES

FLIGHT PLAN AND FLIGHT PLANNING REPORT

MSC.ING ERIK LAGOS

NAME: VALERIA BEATRIZ GARCIA DIAZ

ACCOUNT NUMBER

20171031288

DATE:
27/02/2023

1
Content
Content...........................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................3
GENERAL OBJECTIVES.............................................................................................4
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES..............................................................................................4
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.................................................................................5
Flight planning...............................................................................................................6
Preparation before the trip..............................................................................................7
Step by step of pix4dcapture..........................................................................................8
x 0.....................................................................................................................................11
ANALYSIS OF A FLIGHT PLAN..............................................................................13
Conclusions..................................................................................................................13
Bibliography.................................................................................................................15

2
 INTRODUCTION

Aerial photography is made up of a series of factors that are part of the quality of the
results. Furthermore, the design of a photogrammetric flight can be defined as a
technique for capturing spatial information at a distance, which allows quantifying and
obtaining very relevant information from the terrestrial surface and the environment in
order to prepare maps of social, cultural and economic interest, is intrinsically linked
with photointerpretation since they complement each other in order to achieve an
accurate representation of the real world.

“Technique whose objective is to study and define precisely the shape, dimensions and
position in space of any object using essentially measurements made on one or several
photographs of that object.”

The most relevant aspects when carrying out the design of a photogrammetric flight are:
the scale of the map that will later be restored, the average scale of the photographs, the
necessary overlap between the photographs, the flight time of the aircraft, the control
points necessary for the correction of the photographs, the GSD or pixel size, the
minimum and maximum heights of the sun, the weather at the time of taking the
photographs.

3
GENERAL OBJECTIVES

They are one of the most used techniques for inspections, building surveys or the
planning of public works, currently using UAV platforms. With photogrammetric drone
flight, the possibilities for exploiting images have grown. Allowing automatic generation
of height models, ortho-images and stereo-images, creation and visualization of three-
dimensional models

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

• Captured photographs must have a high amount of overlap between images.

• To achieve the most perfect 3D possible, at least an overlap between consecutive

images of 80% is required in each photograph.
• the parameters of height and transverse and longitudinal overlap, the number of
passes that the UAV has to make for correct coverage is calculated based on the
distance to be traveled, the area to be covered, the flight time, number of images
necessary, the size of the pixel, the image footprint and the shooting speed of the
camera.

4
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

1. digital camera

It is a camera that uses an electronic sensor to digitize images and save them in a
memory. In order to carry out a good photogrammetric process, it is essential to make a
good selection of the sensor to use, this is because there are different categories of digital
cameras such as large, medium and small format cameras, apart from this some work
with multispectral capabilities, this provides a wide range of possibilities when deciding
which sensor to use. For digital cameras there is no standard sensor format. The market
is divided into large format cameras (such as the Intergraph DMC), medium format
cameras and small format cameras. Most of these cameras have a rectangular image
format, where the largest dimension is in the transverse direction to minimize the
number of flight lines required for photographic flights.

2. Photogrammetry

Photogrammetry can be defined as a technique for capturing spatial information at a

distance, which allows quantifying and obtaining very relevant information from the
Earth's surface and the environment in order to prepare maps of social, cultural and
economic interest, it is intrinsically linked with photointerpretation since they
complement each other in order to achieve an accurate representation of the real world.
It serves as the main input for cartography and the preparation of complex maps, no
direct intervention is necessary in the work area so there is no disturbance in the
environment or the daily life of the communities, it is widely used in the field of civil
engineering for the development of projects in the first phase, since it provides spatial
information on the vegetation layer and the topography of the area where the projects are
going to be carried out. It makes important contributions in other sciences, such as
architecture where planar photogrammetry makes an important contribution in taking
measurements from photographs. In geographical institutes worldwide, photogrammetry
is based as the main input for the development of cartography.

3. Programming in pix4dcapture
PIX4Dcapture supports drones from DJI, Parrot and Yuneec, three of the largest drone
manufacturers on the market. Parrot's Bluegrass and Disco-Pro AG agricultural drones
are exclusively compatible with PIX4Dcapture .

5
Flight planning

The processing of aerial images captured by drones with high quality and sharpness. The
resulting images are intended to be used in machine learning to quantify coverage and
for identification. A flight plan is a georeferenced file with the passes that the plane or
drone must make and, sometimes, with vectors that indicate the areas to cover as a
reference.

The most important factors to take into account within a photogrammetric flight are:

• The altitude will normally be measured in feet and the reference will always be
the sea, so it will be an absolute measurement that will affect, for example, a
greater or lesser presence of clouds, turbulence or the amount of oxygen.

• Height will normally be measured in meters and its expression will always be the
difference between the aircraft and the terrain, so it is a relative measurement. It
is linked both to safety (minimum flight height for aircraft and maximum for
drones) and to the GSD or LIDAR point density that we want to obtain.

• The speed will allow us to carry out the photogrammetric work in more or less
time. This factor will be very manageable in helicopters or certain types of
drones, while fixed-wing aircraft will be subject to a minimum speed to carry out
the flight safely and viable.

• The registration footprint is the area of the Earth's surface that will be registered
or captured. This footprint can be calculated in advance using software by
introducing different parameters such as those previously described and adapting
them to an MDE.
• The overlap is the percentage of the registration print repeated by two or more
passes.
• The most important files when carrying out flight planning
photogrammetric files will be, in addition to the MDE (which is normally
included in the flight planning program – Pix4D, DroneDeploy, Topoflight,
Leica Mission Pro, etc.), vector files. These files, in addition to helping us check
the coverage when we plan the flight, will allow us to verify during its execution
that the passes are covering both the study area and the support points, if any.
Flight planning will always be done in geographic (WGS84-EPSG 4326), so the
associated files such as vector files must have the same coordinate system.

• the performance of the photogrammetric flight, as it will allow us to know if the

6
 project is viable from a temporal and economic point of view. (Geoinnova, 2021)

area of interest
We are going to define our area to carry out the drone survey. To be more exact, we are
located on this occasion in the distribution where we cover the area of 50 hectares.

Documentation package
Make sure to bring all flight information and licenses to the respective region. Also carry
the contact information of any relevant link, owner or authority. This list will be called
from now on as: drone documentation package that contains this: pilot license, drone
registration, flight plan, permits.

Meteorological conditions
Safe drone operation requires a fairly mild climate. Precipitation, strong winds and poor
visibility make drone operation unsafe. Significantly cloudy weather can also obscure
sunlight and result in poor quality images. Monitor weather forecasts and seasonality
before the flight date and reschedule if conditions are unfavorable.

Preparation before the trip.

Pack
Drone, Drone case, Drone batteries, Battery chargers, Inverter and battery, or generator,
Drone remote control, Drone documentation package, iPad with flight software, SD
cards, USB cables, SD card reader, Laptop computer, Laptop charger.

Batteries
Batteries can take up to an hour and a half to be fully charged, so bring freshly charged
batteries to the field.

1. Flight Plan: The Image Processing Method requires two sets of images from
flights of different altitudes: 120 meters, and approximately 15 meters, although
exact altitudes may vary, depending on local conditions. A flight plan facilitates
communication between crew members and authorities.
2. Flight area First make sure that the area is not classified airspace. If it is, obtain
permission from the relevant authorities. Identify a viable takeoff location where
the pilot can maintain visual contact with the drone and also maintain radio
connection between the drone and the remote control.
3. Log preparation: To seek approval and if approached by law enforcement

7
 officers, have a clearly documented flight plan and also your related permits.
This can be a one-page document describing and mapping the area, and also the
exact location, altitude, duration and purpose of each flight.
4. Final review of restrictions: Look for any notice from the respective country's
federal flight agency to aviators regarding temporary or permanent restrictions
on drone flight and that the region does not have any GPS interference.
5. Field of view check: Perform a final visual check of the flight area and confirm
that the field of view to the drone will be possible throughout the flight. Take
into account the characteristics of the terrain, buildings and weather conditions.
(Hsu, 2019)

Step by step of pix4dcapture

• The first step to use pix4dcapture is to open an account which is free.

• Let's configure to make our flight plan; we go to settings.

• Now we configure our drone, in this case we choose the Movic Air Drone.
Product designed by DJI. With a 1/2-inch CMOS sensor, Mavic Air captures
stunning 48MP photos.

8
 • We continue with the camera specification.
camera Close

• Mavic Air Camera

DRONE DEFAULT CAMERA

Mavic Air Camera

CUSTOM CAMERA

Add custom camera...

• We place the units in meters.

Content............................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................3
GENERAL OBJECTIVES.............................................................................................4
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES...............................................................................................4
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK..................................................................................5
Flight planning................................................................................................................6
Preparation before the trip..............................................................................................7
Step by step of pix4dcapture...........................................................................................8
0
x ......................................................................................................................................11
ANALYSIS OF A FLIGHT PLAN..............................................................................13
Conclusions...................................................................................................................13
Bibliography.................................................................................................................15

Project 00002 Ei Project 00001 EE

| 2/1 3/23,4:51 PM 2/13/23, 4:48 PM

• Now we make a mission plan

9
• We must have a coordinate system in this case WGS84 /UTM 16 zone N. Or we
can tie ourselves to a geodetic point, or we place our own coordinates through
GPS.

1
0
• We create control points to delimit the area to be surveyed.
• We set the GSD to 2.05 at a height of 57 m.

• We look at the specifications of the drone, its battery, memory card, camera
balance, etc.
T Mavic Air
• ) Mavic Air Camera
ED 0% - 0%

x0
G N/A
Speed: 0.0m/s

Alt: 0.0 / 57.0 m N/A m away

• Now we create a polygon that covers an area of 50 hectares.

• Then we create a grid with the same parameters as the GSD.

1
1
• Then we make a double grid to make a 3D model.

• Finally, for three-dimensional objects we can make them circular.

• Within the configuration of a polygon, grid, double grid, leave the greatest
overlap so that each point in the area is taken in much more detail in each
photograph and the same information is seen after photos.

1
2
ANALYSIS OF A FLIGHT PLAN

This manual shows the ways to carry out a well-planned flight plan, in this case we have
to determine the flight lines to form our flight block which configures the area 500,000
m = 50 hectares; It is known that photogrammetric flights must be carried out in such a
way that every point on the terrain appears in at least two consecutive photographs to
obtain similar images so as not to lose any data. In addition, we have a good resolution
of the same and the overlap, in this way They will be able to be examined
stereoscopically, with the objective of covering a certain magnitude in the direction of
flight, which we will call Longitudinal Superposition (u %). However, since when
photographing a large area of land it cannot be covered in a single flight of the plane,
then it is necessary to take two or more photographs in parallel and equidistant
directions, so you have to take into account what height you have to fly to have a better
focus and cover much more area for the number of flights there will be in one day, so
let's go. To delimit the distance between flight lines it has to be 12.5m between lines,
save battery because in this case we only have three well-charged batteries but we do not
have to use all of them so we have to calculate the flight time the result will be t =
0.13hrs will use at least two batteries for a day of work. The number of photographs
taken will be 130.

Photogrammetry teaches us that it is not only about using drones or sensors but is an
aerial, terrestrial, etc. analysis system. They are also methods that help us make a series
of decisions for which the map or other map has to be carried out, although we organize
ourselves better in the budget at the time of carrying out a project, it is to put the control
units in the background. the operation that is going to take place by the pilot in
command, thus increasing security and order in each of the air operations that are going
to take place over periods of time.

Conclusions

• The purpose of a photogrammetric flight plan is to be able to represent on a map

with an appropriate scale the flight lines that must be followed, the image capture
points and the flight height.

• It teaches us the benefits of making an unmanned flight to be able to implement

this data capture technique to support small, medium and large engineering

1
3
 projects in a more efficient and economical way.

• To obtain a better flight line is the precision of the information abstracted from
the terrain, which will finally be reflected in the final deliverables of the flights
such as the orthomosaics.

1
4
Bibliography
TO. Barrientos, J. d. (2007). Unmanned aerial vehicles for civil use. Madrid: , Polytechnic
University of Madrid. Obtained from Robotics and Cybernetics Groups.

Geoinnova. (05/23/2021). What aspects should you take into account when planning a
photogrammetric flight?Obtained from https://geoinnova.org/blog-territorio/vuelo-
fotogrammetrico/

Hsu, A. (2019). Drone flight manual. California.

1
5