Drone 3D Models On Google Earth - Modeled With Drone Harmony, Mavic Pro, & Metashape.

[@gadget_Bob]

Thanks for the direct answer, Rich! Once you have the 3D model, it looks like it acts the same way as a 2D overlay in Google Earth. Good to know! One thing to add. Once you bring in the model, if it's not lined up exactly with the Google Earth image, you can look straight down on the image and while holding the SHIFT key (to keep proportion), grab a corner of the dotted line rectangle around the image and resize it and move it around as needed to line up with Google Earth. Once it's lined up from above, you can play with the altitude to get it as close to the ground as possible.

[@souocara38able]

Thanks Rich, The timing for this one happened in be perfect for me. I've been tinkering with making 3-D models and thinking about how to implement them with construction progress work. If the construction is gonna be renting or selling units in this building then it's likely that prospective tenants would love to see the surrounding area which of course is far too big for us to map. Mapping the construction and showing it in Google Earth can be perfect. At the same time I've also been reading up on actual real mapping and I came across something that started to explain how... when you're not able to gather the coordinates of GCP's you can get the information from a program (arcGis?) that already has the GPS Data listed. Then take that that information for example of a telephone Pole, a fence post or traffic light post and put it into your own map. Are you familiar with that?

[@AZ-Drone]

I'm actually very familiar with Arc Gis. It was used by our Radio Frequency Engineers back in my telecomm days. It's used by land surveyors, right of way companies, cell companies, utility companies, etc. I've worked with ArcGis myself while contracting for a right of way company a few years ago. There's a lot to learn! There's also a pretty steep price tag with many GIS applications. ArcGIS online for an individual is $500 a year. I've often thought that a great scenario would be for drone pilots to team up with Land Survey Engineering groups. Work with them, provide your collected data, and become part of their process.

[@theresemoffat7403]

You can buy a home use licence of arc gis that costs around $100 per year.

[@AZ-Drone]

Therese Moffat Nice!!! I’ll be doing that.

[@souocara38able]

@@theresemoffat7403 Thanks for that tip!

[@LennyKay]

Nice Video my friend 😎👍🎬 Keep it up 👍👍

[@8barbies779]

hey rich, i know this video is old & i'm sure you're really busy, i really hope you or someone else can answer my question. it's actually a really simple question based on this very techie & in depth video:))) i found your site because you answered the exact question i googled, i wanted to know if i could fly a drone around a sweet cabin that i saw the other day & then overlay that into GE on one of my outfitting sites in the mountains where GE imagery is old, poor quality etc. wow was i amazed what you guys can do these days. back to my question, (please anybody chime in that may know the answer), maybe i missed it but...i think you flew around the exact site that you wanted to overlay in GE but...did you fly around that building somewhere else, then overlay that onto the site flight, kind of mesh them up in metashape, then overlay the whole image to GE in this video? it looks like there was already a building in original GE image so maybe the building was already there and you flew the site for better imagery & maybe some changes to landscape? i hope this makes sense because what i want to do is: 1) fly around empty site to update imagery on GE 2) fly around a sweet existing cabin 100,s of miles away 3) merge that sweet cabin flight into the empty site flight 4) overlay that combo into GE i think then i could cruise around GE and look at a real 3D Photogrammetry image of the dream cabin on my site that i could then show to partners and clients. sorry for the long ramble.

[@AZ-Drone]

Good morning! I really like your question! In the case of doing a Google Earth Overlay. I flew around the empty site using an app for autonomous drone control. I processed the images for making 2D and 3D models, and then selected the 2D orthomosaic model to overlay on to GE. With a Geotiff you can easily lock the ortho to Google Earth. Flying another location to capture a cool building sounds very interesting. I haven't ever done that (place a building from one location to another). The models generated have GPS info in them. If I were to fly a building that I wanted to add to a different overlay I'd run into problems with the geographical information. I bet somebody out there can do it, but I haven't tried yet. There are a lot of services out there now doing Augmented reality. I could see someone building a service around this idea.

[@8barbies779]

@@AZ-Drone thanks for the quick reply, yeah at first i thought you did exactly what i'm talking about but after the 3rd watch i looked a little closer & i think i could see the gazebo on the original GE overlay, but then i got to thinking that maybe there was indeed a gazebo there but that you flew a nicer one to add into a 'site only' overlay to then lay into google earth, i think i heard you say something like you wanted to show the park dept. what a nice gazebo would look like, but obviously i just heard what i wanted to hahahaha. yeah, i'm brand new but now that i think about it, a guy might run into those elevation issues you're talking about. i'm guessing that those ground control points you are talking about in your video are something that you gather with the flight plan of your drone (maybe land it every now and then to get ground elevation), so maybe a guy could pull the ground points out of the empty site model, and apply them to the bottom of the dream cabin model. and then there's the whole cutting & meshing the final model in metashape. i haven't used it yet but i have used some blender, sketchup, photoshop etc. so i can kind of imagine how it might be done, i just don't know that it can 'actually' be done. i can add a model from sketchup into GE, so i figure if i can just create that mashup of 2 flight/ortho-whatever's & output to kmz/kml i could maybe do it. funny thing is, is that i started thinking about this about 24 hours ago & i'm already thinking about dropping 2-3 grand & a bunch of time...i might as well just build the damn cabin already hahahaha. thanks rich

[@8barbies779]

@@AZ-Drone I did it! i will attach a couple of images if YT let's me. remember 6 days ago when i didn't know what a Ground Control Point was, i thought it was just when your drone landed and recorded some data hahahahaha, what a newb. anyway, since i just couldn't let this go, i dove into metashape and started messing around. i don't have a drone yet, and wanted to keep the file small because GE has a limit, so i took my phone & thru trial and error took about 65 pics around one of my 4 wheelers, imported images into metashape, figured out how to align them & lie to it by putting in coordinates of my choosing as some of my GCP's (which i now know what are & printed a bunch using Metashape). anyway, i chose quick rendering because my laptop kept crashing so the render isn't great but i see no reason why i couldn't replicate this with a drone, some time & a better computer. hopefully these 4 pics show up as an attachment. tell me if you recognize where i put it:))) PS - Dang i can't attach pics, if you're interested reply back & i'll post my email & if you get it i can then delete off this post so the whole world doesn't have my email:)))

[@edwinvarela4779]

I've tried loading my model from Metashape, but when it loads in google earth (which takes about 30 mins), its in a kaleidoscope color. Any idea why?

[@AZ-Drone]

Did you double check that your export was a Geotiff and not a DEM (digital elevation model). Making a DEM can result it a multicolored model.

[@edwinvarela4779]

@@AZ-Drone it shouldn't be neither...the geotiffs are 2D and I'm sure I didn't export as a DEM. I followed your exact steps

[@dronesiviews]

@@edwinvarela4779 If you export your orthomosaic or model as a .kmz or .kml it should open in Google Earth properly if you have it installed and double click the .kml or .kmz file. However if you don't reduced the size of your ortho/model it will take more time to load.