Inspection tools

Drone2Map includes an inspection workflow that provides inspection tools to review drone imagery, quickly find and document areas of interest, and report those findings for in-field resolution. Inspections in Drone2Map provide a safe alternative to inspect assets that are difficult or dangerous to reach by foot and allow the work of collecting the drone imagery and inspecting features to be split among various users.

An inspection session is split into multiple areas, which are described below.

Inspection Editor pane

In the Inspection Editor pane, the schema defined from the initial configuration of an inspection session is used to provide a space where the details about new features can be noted. Integer fields can be configured to hold domain values that can benefit the categorization of inspections. For example, if an inspection session is being run on an industrial area that contains many pipes of various size and color, fields for color and size can be created in the inspection schema to help catalog the inspection features.

The Inspection Editor pane also contains the tools for inspection feature creation; currently, points, lines, and polygons are supported. New inspection features are created using the Inspection Editor pane in tandem with the Inspection Viewer window. Objects in the Inspection Viewer window can also be measured with distance, area, and height tools from the Inspection Editor pane. Since an inspection session requires the adjustment step to be run in the project, the measurements are accurate and allow you to track the progress or degradation of objects in the imagery.

Inspection Viewer window

The Inspection Viewer window is where inspection features are sketched and inspected. It functions as a map window with zooming, rotating, and panning capabilities. Since it is a map viewer window, movement within the window is not restricted to the extent of the image being displayed, which provides for better control over the inspection process. In the Inspection Viewer window, images and sketches can be associated with inspection features through the Create Snapshot button Create Snapshot. Selecting images and clicking this button attaches those images to an inspection feature so that anytime that inspection feature is opened in the Inspection Viewer window, those images appear in the underlying image gallery. Using the Mark Inspected button Check Mark helps to create a visual list of the images that have been inspected, enabling filtering Filter of the gallery to keep track of the completed images.

Images in the image gallery can also be filtered based on a specific point location using the Filter By Point button Filter by Map Point on the Inspection tab. Clicking this button changes the pointer to crosshairs that can be clicked anywhere in the 2D or 3D map. The image gallery in the Inspection Viewer window is filtered down to the five closest images to that point. Additional images can be loaded into the gallery using the Load More or Load All button.

When working with inspection features, it can be useful to see where the drawn feature is in the Inspection Viewer window and the map at the same time. The Sync Views button Sync Views can be enabled in the Inspection Viewer window to automatically adjust the map to match the location and rotation of any image currently in focus. Once enabled, it will persist in updating the map when switching to other images in the image gallery.

Inspection table

The inspection table provides a singular view of the inspection features and their attributes. Each inspection feature has its own row in the table, and the fields that were defined in the Inspection Editor pane are present for that feature. The inspection table allows you to keep track of changes to inspection features. Inspection features can be opened or deleted directly from the table regardless of geometry type.

Inspection report

The inspection report is a detailed HTML report of all the inspection features that have been created in the inspection session. The report is automatically generated when you click the Inspection Report button Inspection Report and it regenerates the report if new features are added or removed. The inspection report includes an overview of the project area and a table of contents. Each inspection feature appears with its assigned name or designation in the table of contents as a link that can be clicked to move to its respective page. Upon viewing an inspection feature in the report, any images that were attached to the inspection feature as a snapshot also are present. Additionally, as the inspection report is generated, a PDF version is also created in the inspection report directory.

The inspection report allows all the cataloged observations to be shared without additional software to read it.

Inspection properties

When using the inspection workflow, there are many options that can be configured to customize inspection features and the inspection report. All of these options can be accessed using the Inspection Properties button Inspection Options. When you click this button, the Inspection Properties window appears. It is divided into three tabs: Report, Symbology, and Inspection Data.

Report

The Report tab allows you to personalize the inspection report by adding a custom title, logo, and summary. The logo can be imported as a graphics file and appears on the cover page of the report. At the bottom of the Report tab, the Inspection Report Directory section displays a hyperlink to where the report is stored. To see changes to the report, click the Inspection Report button Inspection Report to regenerate the report.

Symbology

If there is a field in the inspection schema that contains domains, each domain value is automatically assigned a symbol color. When you click the Symbology tab, the current domains in that field are displayed as well as their color. The colors for each domain can be changed and are reflected in the map, image viewer, and inspection report. If the domain symbology is modified when drawing a sketch, the sketch is erased and must be re-created before the changes are visible.

Inspection Data

The Inspection Data tab provides options for working with the inspection session and feature snapshots.

The Depth offset option allows you to define an offset for the drawing of inspection features in 3D. When generating an inspection, depth map images are created, and the pixel values denote how close objects in the image are to the camera's location. These depth map images are how inspection features are drawn in 3D. However, in some cases, the depth map values and the outer values of a 3D mesh may not align. When this occurs, an inspection feature may appear as though it is sinking in or behind the mesh. Defining a negative value on the depth offset allows inspection features to be drawn farther away from the mesh. Depth offset values use the same unit as the project.

The Attach Feature snapshot option can be used to attach any snapshot you create to its associated feature in the project file geodatabase. This makes the snapshots appear in the feature pop-ups when they are clicked on a map. This option is automatically enabled when sharing inspection features online.

The Generate Thumbnails button can be used if any thumbnails are not appearing correctly in the image viewer's image gallery when creating inspection features.