Drone captures cover a site the way a walk-through cannot: the whole footprint, from above, on one date. In SiteView they sit alongside the 360 captures rather than in a separate tool, so the same date selector, Capture Grid and Settings work on them.
Opening a drone capture
From the topbar
Drone captures belong to the Site, not to a building.
- Open the first selector in the topbar and pick Site, under Sites.
- In the second selector, pick Drone Capture. SiteView opens the newest drone capture and switches to drone mode.
- To see an older one, use See other dates on the capture date, or Capture Grid.
- Site, then the capture type - pick Drone Capture here; a Site with only Ground Capture has no drone capture yet.
- The site orthomosaic - drawn on the map under the Site.
From Capture Grid
Capture Grid lists the Site's drone captures as a row of their own, Drone Capture, beside the levels, one cell per date. Each cell carries the Drone icon from the legend at the top. Click a cell to open that date.
- The Drone Capture row - each drone capture of the Site, by date, in Capture Grid.
- Drone - the legend icon a drone capture carries.
Two ways to look at it
| View | What you see | How you move |
|---|---|---|
| Drone 2D | The orthomosaic, flat and to scale, over a satellite map | Drag to pan, scroll to zoom |
| Drone 3D | The reconstructed model of the site | Orbit, zoom and pan |
Switch between them with the 3D button beside the gizmo.
- The orthomosaic - the site flat and to scale, over the satellite map.
- The gizmo - reads compass bearings in Drone 2D; turns the map off and on, back to north, zoom and fit.
The gizmo in Drone 2D is the only one in SiteView that reads compass bearings: N, E, S, W. Its controls turn the satellite map on and off, turn the view back to north, zoom, and fit the site to the screen.
Zooming out far enough leaves the site and shows where it is in the world. That is useful for orientation, and for nothing else.
Layers of a drone capture
A drone capture brings layers a 360 capture does not have. Each is a category in Settings, and most are also in the right-click menu.
The orthomosaic
Settings > Orthomosaic Images turns the flat image layer on and off and sets its opacity, so you can fade it against the map or the 3D model underneath.
- Orthomosaic Images - the flat drone image layer, opened from Settings.
- Show on 2D Viewer - shows the orthomosaic on the map and the reference plan viewer.
- Opacity - fades the orthomosaic against what is underneath.
The flight path
Settings > Flight Path draws the route the drone flew across the site.
| Control | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Show on 2D Viewer | The path over the orthomosaic and the reference plan |
| Show on 3D Viewer | The path through the 3D model |
| GPS Position | Where the drone reported it was (blue) |
| Computed Position | Where processing worked out it actually was (green) |
- Drone 3D - the reconstructed site model; orbit, zoom and pan.
- Flight Path - Show on 2D Viewer, Show on 3D Viewer, GPS Position, Computed Position.
- GPS Position and Computed Position - both on, so the two paths can be compared.
- Both paths - where they separate, the drone's GPS and the reconstruction disagree.
Where the route was recorded, the path is drawn as a numbered run of waypoints: a green Start at 1, each turn numbered, a red End at the last. It is the clearest way to see which parts of the site the flight covered and which it clipped.
The numbered path - Start at 1, each turn numbered, End at the last; it shows what the flight covered.
If the capture has no flight log, the Flight Path switch is greyed out.
The DSM - the site by height
The DSM, digital surface model, colours the site by height instead of by photo, so slopes, mounds and cut faces read at a glance. It comes with an elevation histogram and a range control: narrow the range and the colours spread across the heights you care about instead of the whole site.
Turn it on from Settings > 3D Maps, or from DSM in the right-click menu.
- DSM - the site coloured by height.
- Opacity - how strongly the DSM is drawn.
- Elevation - the histogram and range; narrow it to spread the colours across the heights you care about.
Ground control points
Where a survey team has placed ground control points (GCPs), they tie the drone data to real-world position, and they get a category of their own: Settings > Ground Control Points, under Reality Captures, alongside the orthomosaic and the flight path.
Turn it on and each point is drawn on the orthomosaic as a crosshair with its label under it: GCP-01, GCP-02 and so on, in the survey's numbering. Hover a marker to see its coordinates. The markers sit over the imagery rather than in it, so they stay legible as you zoom.
- Ground Control Points - its own category under Reality Captures in Settings.
- The markers - each GCP as a labelled crosshair over the orthomosaic, with the numbered flight path.
What a drone project shows in Settings
Fewer categories than a building project, and different ones: Reference Plans, 3D Maps, Orthomosaic Images, Flight Path, Public Share, Integrations, and Ground Control Points where the survey has them. There are no Pano Bubbles, because a drone capture has no walking positions to show. See Settings and SmartFilter - what is drawn.
SmartFilter works on drone captures too, from the gizmo.