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Create drone imagery products using ArcGIS Pro

Available with Advanced license.

ArcGIS includes several options for creating products from drone imagery. This topic focuses on ArcGIS Pro. If you want a focused desktop application without the additional functionality of ArcGIS Pro, consider using ArcGIS Drone2Map. If your organization needs a software-as-a-service (SaaS) capability, use Site Scan for ArcGIS.

The proliferation of camera drones and the fast development of photogrammetry have made it possible for GIS professionals, land managers, and many others to capture their own data and process it to create a wide variety of geospatial products.

Camera drones used for mapping capture consecutive images and frames with overlaps higher than 70 percent to allow the successful photogrammetric processing. The resulting images can be turned into digital surface models (DSMs), True Orthos, point clouds, and 3D meshes. These photogrammetric products can then be used as part of many applications, such as city or infrastructure planning, visibility analysis, and more.

ArcGIS Pro allows users to create traditional orthomosaics, digital terrain models (DTMs), DSMs, True Orthos, point clouds, and 3D meshes from drone imagery.

To create orthomosaics and DSMs, use the ortho mapping capability, which is part of ArcGIS Pro Advanced. To create True Orthos, point clouds, and 3D meshes, as well as ortho mapping results, use the reality mapping capability, which is a part of ArcGIS Reality for ArcGIS Pro.

Both the ortho mapping and reality mapping capabilities include a wizard that allows users to create multiple products in a single process.

Use the following high-level workflow to create drone imagery products:

  1. Create a reality mapping or ortho mapping workspace and input your drone imagery data.
  2. Perform a block adjustment, which analyzes the content in the overlapped imagery and metadata about the drone camera location to calculate accurate image orientations.
  3. If not using an RTK drone, apply ground control points to ensure spatial accuracy.
  4. Choose and generate the imagery output products such as a 2D or 3D mesh, point cloud, or True Ortho product.

Note:

To use this workflow, you'll need ArcGIS Pro Standard or ArcGIS Pro Advanced (for ortho mapping) or the ArcGIS Reality for ArcGIS Pro extension (for Reality mapping). You can publish data products to ArcGIS Online or your ArcGIS Enterprise portal.

Imagery Workflows resources

Try a hands-on ortho mapping tutorial for processing drone imagery using sample data from the Imagery Workflows website.

ArcGIS help

Review the following links on reference materials for ArcGIS products:

ArcGIS blog articles, stories, and technical papers

Review the following supplemental guidance about concepts, software functionality, and workflows:

Training and tutorials

Complete a tutorial to learn how to create drone imagery products in ArcGIS Reality for ArcGIS Pro.

Developer resources

Review the following resources and support for automating and customizing workflows:

Technical support

Learn how to troubleshoot a known problem with negative z-values in drone imagery (specific to drone imagery from the DJI6000 series FC camera models).

Esri Community

Ask the ArcGIS Reality Community questions about creating drone imagery products.

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