Drone guide

Fly your drone

Follow the steps below before starting your drone mission. And make sure you have one of the supported drones. Look at related articles to see which drones we support right now.

Stage 1. Permits

Use a flight planning application like DJI, DroneDeploy, or any other system of your preference. If you have a DJI Smart Controller Pro you have a built-in flight planning application in the controller.

Stage 2. Flight Planning Application

Use a flight planning application like DJI Ground Station Pro, DroneDeploy or any other system of you preference.

Stage 3. Mission Planning

Recommended settings for analysis:

Flight height = 120m
Overlap sideways = 40%
Overlap frontways = 40%

Tip: If your area is flat and there is low wind speed, you can change the side overlap to 30% to get faster data collection. Note that there is a risk that you might lose data in the overlap but the data collection goes faster.

Recommendations for flight:

Always take a starting image from the ground (bild för visualisering)
Start from the highest point in the area
Elevation upwards a maximum of 20m
Elevation downwards a maximum of 40m

Note: The higher from the trees the image is taken the higher the risk for loss in analysis quality is.

Camera recommendations:

Camera angle = 90° (downwards)
Camera settings for beginners = auto
White balance = 5600K
Capture mode = Capture at an Equal distance interval

Note: More advanced camera settings might get you better image quality and exposure which will increase the analysis quality.

For advanced users that want a higher image quality and analysis result use the following complimentary guides:

Tip for advanced users:  If your area has alot of height differences you can use terrain follow. Before planning your area split it up so that an area is not larger than 75 ha to make the flight more efficient. Note that the height error in the drone apps digital terrain models can be over 30m sometimes.

Stage 4. Flight day

Now you are here and ready to fly. Do not forget to insert the memory card.

1. Set up the drone and start it to let it find enough satellites

2. Take up your phone/tablet and open your preferred drone app

3. Take a starting image on the ground before starting the mission by pressing the camera button on the remote controller. A starting image is necessary for every new start, so every time you move location or change battery.

4. Start the flight in the drone app after your planned mission

5. Take a fika and be in charge of the flight

Tip: Taking a starting image from the ground will make your mosaics smoother, with higher GPS accuracy and the analysis better.

Stage 5. Analysis

When you have the images on the memory card you can upload all the flight images to ArboPortal to get your forest analyzed.