Crop scouting - e.g., assessing damage after a storm, monitoring crop health.Management and oversight - e.g., keeping tabs on general progress of a construction site.Small-scale measurements - e.g., area of a field, length of a fence, width of a stockpile.Projects for which relative accuracy is usually sufficient: Because drone maps contain thousands of points, compared to the few hundred points obtained through traditional survey methods, maps with relative accuracy give a highly detailed overview of terrain that works well for these types of projects.

Essentially, any time you need to gather information from within a map itself, but do not necessarily need to place that map accurately in space. Relative accuracy is usually sufficient for projects like taking small-scale measurements, visually inspecting progress on construction sites and monitoring fields for crop health. Relative Accuracy: Management, Measurement and Marketing While it’s tempting to think that greater accuracy is always better, the tactics and technology required to achieve extremely high levels of accuracy can add significant time and expense to your project and aren’t always necessary or worthwhile for your objectives. If it’s more for a marketing effort or we’re making smaller relative volumetric measurements, we may not bother with GCPs on that site.Īssessing each project - the desired outputs, where and how the final map will be used, what decisions will be made based off the information - will help you determine how important accuracy is in any given situation. When referring to the use of ground control points, which greatly improve a map’s absolute accuracy, Hunter Cole of construction company Brasfield & Gorrie puts the decision this way: If we’re going to make a critical determination off of the data set, absolutely we’re going to use GCPs. Some projects need a high level of global accuracy, while in other cases, relative accuracy will suffice. Your project goals will determine what level of accuracy you require. What Accuracy Level Do I Need for My Project? If a map has a high level of global accuracy, the latitude and longitude of a point on that map will correspond fairly accurately with actual GPS coordinates. Absolute (or global) accuracy: Absolute accuracy, on the other hand, is the degree to which a point on a map corresponds to a fixed coordinate system in the real world.In other words, if a distance between two points measures 10 inches in the real world, it also measures 10 inches on your map. Relative (or local) accuracy: Relative accuracy is the degree to which a given point on a map is accurate relative to other points within that same map.

When it comes to drone mapping, there are two ways to think about accuracy: relative accuracy and absolute accuracy.

Read our free whitepaper for more information. Have questions about measurement accuracy of DJI Drones? We tested the most common DJI aircraft to determine exactly how accurate they are. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about accuracy in drone mapping? Is it always important for a map to be highly accurate? And what range of accuracy can you expect from your maps? We’ve put together a primer to help you better understand the basics of drone mapping accuracy. Over the last few years, as drone technology has advanced, so too has the ability for drone maps to be highly accurate.

Drone deploy map accuracy