From the course: From Drone to AutoCAD: The Workflow

Collecting data with a drone for future use with AutoCAD - AutoCAD Tutorial

From the course: From Drone to AutoCAD: The Workflow

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Collecting data with a drone for future use with AutoCAD

“

Let's talk more now about how we would go about collecting data with a drone, ready for that AutoCAD workflow. Drones are unique because of their unparalleled mobility, flying just about anywhere, even in tight spaces and close to critical infrastructure. They're a lot less expensive, both in terms of acquisition and operating costs, and drones are mostly used now for aerial photography, photogrammetry, which is what we're going to discuss in this particular course. We're going to talk about taking the photogrammetry from the drone and converting it through and using particular bits of software to get it into AutoCAD, into that DWG file format. Drones, however, can also be augmented for video surveying with more sophisticated equipment such as thermal sensors, LiDAR sensors, electromagnetic energy sensors, and multispectral sensors. So photogrammetry, the one that I mentioned earlier, is the one where you would collect the photos and generate your point cloud in your model. The video surveying that I've mentioned there would be more about looking at the video and looking at things like condition surveys and actually looking at the video content from the drone and checking out why that's there and what is actually there in the real world. Drones can collect huge amounts of data much faster and much quicker than any ground-based method. Flight missions can also be automated, ensuring consistent and accurate data as well. Drones reduce the risk of data collection operations, too, they keep people away from potentially dangerous environments, such as near large industrial equipment and high-voltage power lines. Imagine if you had to do a photogrammetry survey of an electricity pylon for a condition survey, or perhaps repair or refurbishment. You don't want people climbing all over that particular high-voltage pylon. So you take the drone up, get the data that way, and then take it into a model, into an application such as AutoCAD, so that you can then work on that data and prepare the drawings ready for the rework of the pylon. This data processing capability is incredibly valuable. So an autonomous drone will typically have an array of infrared and time-of-flight sensors. It can identify obstacles in the vicinity, coming up with a flight path that will clear any obstacles that might be in the way. So what you've got when you're collecting data with the drone is a tool that can collect all of that real-world data in a heartbeat. You don't have to send humans to this place to get that data either. The drone goes where the human goes and also where the human can't go. So collecting that data is incredibly valuable, and it's real-world data that can be converted using current software into CAD applications such as AutoCAD, possibly Revit. And in this case, we're going to be taking it into that AutoCAD DWG file.

Contents