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What exactly do you do?
Mangsen Mapping specializes in turning drone images into usable mapping products. Most of our clients collect images. We then use Pix4D photogrammetry software to produce the desired deliverables, including orthophotos, digital surface and elevation models, point clouds, wire meshes and more. See "PRICING" for a list of possible data products.
How does photogrammetry work?
In its simplest definition, photogrammetry is the use of photographs to make measurements. This can take a variety of forms based on the standard used to make the measurements. Such methods include using a known distance for comparison or even using shadow measurements combined with the angle of the sun...it can get complicated pretty quickly.
Common drone-based photogrammetry works when images overlap. Same points must be shown in multiple images for the software to triangulate spatial values for the point. Photogrammetry software matches tens or even hundreds of thousands of points across images and assigns x, y and z values to each one. These matched points are then used to generate orthophotos, elevation models and more.
Who can use Mangsen Mapping?
Anyone who has a camera can use our services. Mangsen Mapping is not limited to any specific drone or camera. One of our clients tied a Canon Powershot to a plastic weather balloon attached to a 400-foot rope!
We welcome both high-volume and low-volume consumers who either want mapping expertise or who don't want to do the data processing themselves. Also, many of our clients are drone photographers and videographers who don't get enough mapping work to justify the cost of a Pix4D or DroneDeploy subscription. We provide high-quality deliverables for a fraction of the license cost.
What data do I need to provide and how can I collect it?
You need to provide overlapping images. There is a wide variety of apps that let you customize the proper settings. Mangsen Mapping uses Pix4Dcapture because it uses MapBox for its base maps rather than Apple Maps or Google, but there is no one best app. (Apple and Google are severely limited in Korea.)
What industries do you serve?
Drone photogrammetry can be used in countless ways. Mangsen Mapping is not limited to any specific industry. If you can think of an application for 2D maps or 3D models, we can deliver what you need!
What industries have you served?
We have worked with clients in mapping, communications, agriculture, mining, surveying, architecture, conservation, infrastructure management, water management, image analysis, golf course management, and we keep adding to the list. There really is no way to limit the uses of drone mapping.
Why should I choose Mangsen Mapping?
There are a lot of options when it comes to processing drone imagery. More and more solutions come out every month. What separates Mangsen Mapping from many others is that our photogrammetrists are mappers first and droners second. We are trained in photogrammetry and UAV systems at the graduate-school level, offically certified by Pix4D, and working towards certification with the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. We understand the process of photogrammetry from data collection to deliverable production. We also understand the uses and limits of the deliverables.
Choosing Mangsen Mapping allows drone service providers without a background in mapping to combine their products with our expertise.
How are you different from cloud-based processing services?
Cloud-based processing services are easy to use and many of these services have gotten better in the past few years. Their products are usable...most of the time. Each of these services has their own limitations.
At Mangsen Mapping we like to compare cloud-based services to Instagram filters. Sure it's easy and it makes pictures pretty, but there are some things that you would hire a professional for. Using Mangsen Mapping allows our clients to market themselves as professional mappers.
What exactly are your deliverables?
An orthophoto is a stitched-together photo map where the software has removed distortion, such as from camera angle and elevation differences, so that ever pixel has a uniform scale. Each pixel appears as if the camera were directly overhead at the time of capture and as if the scene were completely flat. Orthophotos can be treated like a map and used for measurements, imported into a geographic information system (GIS). Images that have not been orthorectified cannot be used in these ways due to distortion.
A digital surface model (DSM) is a raster dataset where every cell has a x, y and z location value for the first thing that the camera sees. It displays the tops of trees, cars, buildings, and so on.
Unlike a DSM, a digital elevation model (DEM), which is sometimes called a digital terrain model (DTM), is run through an algorithm that removes trees and buildings to create a raster image where each pixel has an x, y and z location value for the ground.
Point clouds are datasets where points have x, y and z location values assigned to them by the software. During the photogrammetric process the software generates all other deliverables based on a point cloud that it produces first.
Wire meshes connect points from the point clouds to form edges of polygons, usually triangles. They form a structure for 3D animators to work with.
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