The Challenges Of Drone Mapping

Contemporary mapping landscape is changing rapidly. Over the last few decades, most of the surveyors worked with total stations and GPS receivers for point to point data collection on a day-to-day basis. A usual workflow would end with using collected data for generating 2D plans of the mapped area.

Recently, we are witnessing a shift in surveying and aerial mapping drone technology due to rapid hardware and software development. One of the most striking cases is that of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

The global commercial drone market is already benefiting from applications in many different industries such as agriculture, energy, construction, emergency response and a lot of others. Both surveyors and these industries need accurate spatial data on a day-to-day basis.

Today, mobile mapping systems such as UAVs provide an easy and cost-efficient way for collecting a large amount of high-resolution spatial data. With the help of drones, it is possible to complete previously time-consuming tasks within a day – including preparation, flight, image processing time and generating precise and up-to-date overviews for further project planning and management.

“With quick deployment times and low maintenance costs, we can map pretty much anywhere, at any time. Drones allow us to use all kinds of payloads such as near infrared cameras to map vegetation chlorophyll levels for agriculture. Not only do drones make things cheaper and faster for a surveyor, but they also make our job safer. We can now survey areas remotely that perhaps have some environmental risks to them such as quarries, cliff edges, polluted areas, etc.”– Luke Wijnberg, 3DroneMapping.

So, when it comes to mapping with drones, many experts, and also non-expert users now have a chance to make their imagery created with drones. That is also an important reason for this rapid expansion in the drone market today. We should know that not all of this new drone users have experience with making sense of the data generated with drones.

Many of them may ask themselves what’s the real use of all that mapping and high-quality data?

From Spatial Data To Spatial Knowledge

Geographers often claim that 80% of all the data around us have a spatial component. Although the real percentage of spatial input in our cognitive processes may be lower – around 60% – it is still something that makes us think more about what is the basis of our daily decision-making process. Using maps for data visualization is just another way to overcome the limitations of chart-based reports and often inadequate verbal descriptions.

“A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected.”– Reif Larsen, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

With great spatial data such as orthomosaic maps, elevation models, contours, profiles and volumes derived from processing imagery that is now easy to collect with drones, it becomes possible to bring decision-making process on a whole new level in a range of industries. Some examples of using drone imagery for improving workflows and decision-making process are landfill maintenance and management, precision agriculture or overseeing construction sites and quarries, where spatial data is used for project planning, overseeing and reporting purposes.

These examples point us to the fact that the real challenges brought to us by technological advancement introducing big data to a wide variety of users lie in making sense of technology in a particular working environment. How should we use collected data, how to filter it, how to share it, to whom and for what purpose? Or simply, how to use spatial data to create spatial knowledge?

In the end, spatial knowledge is always created, translated, communicated and used by someone, and we should know how to make it more user-friendly for real people in concrete industries so that they could make the most of the contemporary technology. So, our goal should be to create a better environment for creating and communicating this knowledge to various stakeholders. Namely, the real challenge of creating spatial knowledge is in collaboration.