Curious what overlap people are using for typical construction topo flights. I've been doing 75/75 (front/side) but wondering if that's overkill for flat sites.
Flying at 250ft AGL with M3E RTK. Sites are mostly graded pads and earthwork, not a lot of vertical features.
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Sign inDon't forget speed. High overlap doesn't help if you're flying too fast and getting motion blur. At 250ft with 75/75 on an M3E, you should be around 25-30 mph max. Some people crank up the speed to finish faster and wonder why their results are mushy.
75/75 is safe but probably overkill for flat sites. I use 70/70 for general construction topo and 75/75 when there's structure or significant vertical features.
For pure earthwork on a flat pad, you could probably get away with 65/65 and still have plenty of tie points. But storage is cheap and processing isn't that much longer with more overlap. I'd rather have too much than not enough.
For stockpiles specifically I go 80/80. The steep sides need more overlap to get good coverage. Anything less and I get holes in the point cloud on the pile faces.
Flat construction sites 70/70 is fine.
DroneDeploy's flight app will actually recommend overlap based on your site and flight altitude. For most construction sites it suggests 70-75 front, 65-70 side. I generally just trust the recommendation unless there's something unusual about the site.
Good call @RTK_Randy. I've been flying around 28mph. Maybe I'll drop to 25 and see if that helps with the occasional soft spots I've been seeing.