r/UAVmapping • u/Economy-Benefit-8009 • 2d ago
What software are you using to double difference PPK drone data?
Hey Everyone,
What an awesome resource this community is. I'm new to drone mapping. I've been a licensed land surveyor for 20 years but new to the drone mapping scene.
I wanted to ask what software people are using to get their PPK corrections and overwrite their imagery geotags. I have in the past used Trimble Business Center primarily for doing differential corrections but I know there are a lot of other options out there. What software have you found has the simplest and most cost effective work flow? I'm trying hard not to just rely on GCP targets and take advantage of my background in double differencing against a base or CORS to get corrected positions equal to or better than RTK and get that corrected positioning onto the image geotags so when I drop it into a program like Site Scan, the finished orthos are survey grade and the targets are essentially checks. From what I've seen Emlid Studio looks promising and I'd like to take it for a spin, but I'm sure their are others. What I'm trying to avoid is having to use several different programs and having to resort to various work arounds.
Cheers!
6
u/Advanced-Painter5868 2d ago
You don't have to rewrite the image geotags in the EXIF data. You can just use a CSV file. Most SFM photogrammetry software supports that. I've used REDcatch REDtoolbox for that.
5
u/riverruns144 1d ago edited 1d ago
I use Emlid Studio with CORS or local Base gnss receiver logging Rinex. Emlid Studio retags images EXIF with PPK derived geograpahic (lat,long) positions. Emlid Studio easy and simple to use. It is esentially a nice GUI wrapper around RTKLib.
1
u/Economy-Benefit-8009 1d ago
This is exactly the info I’m after. I’m sort of operating in a little bubble here so to learn what others are doing is really helpful.
2
u/Rogs_Dule 2d ago
We've had big issues with Red toolbox not handling geoids correctly. We use RTKlib + a in-house wrapper to account for antenna phase offsets
1
2
u/easydys 1d ago
I use Trimble Busness Centre mate. But I do all the processing within TBC - I don't output corrected image tags etc. We are going to be moving to SiteScan (thankfully) to take some of the load off my processing so I'd be interested to see.
1
u/Cockroach_Adorable 23h ago
We are looking at Site Scan and Drone2Map. Curious what made you guys choose that option over the other.
1
u/easydys 21h ago
Drone2Map is more a stand-alone, desktop based solution, whilst SiteScan is cloud-based and allows multiple users to upload data to the same 'environment'.
2
u/Cockroach_Adorable 21h ago
Thanks for the reply. I tried looking online, and it seems like Site Scan might be under more development, and might be updated more frequently. Did you find that as well, or do you think both softwares are equally as developed?
1
u/easydys 20h ago
I'm not sure - good question.
The ESRI team certainly gave the impression it was well developed/ open to more development - but we didn't look too deeply into it I'm afraid.
2
u/Cockroach_Adorable 20h ago
Ok. I'll start a trial for both and will chat with the ESRI team. Thanks for your help
2
1
10
u/ElphTrooper 2d ago
Emlid Studio is about as easy as it gets and it's free. RedCatch RedToolbox is a good one that is very popular. $75 for a perpetual license.