Introduction

Follow these procedures to upload your drone photos and request deliverables based on those photos.

Procedures

Retrieve Photos from Flight

Each Firmatek Drone Kit comes with an SD mico USB memory card, SD card holder, SD card micro-to-mini USB adaptor, and an SD card universal USB adaptor. We are currently recommending SanDisk Extreme brand SD cards. They must be rated U3. (See picture below).

Open

1. Insert: After the drone lands, the SD card is removed from the drone and inserted into the USB adapter. Then insert the USB adapter into an internet connected computer.

2. Observe: This is a good opportunity to observe several important aspects of the data collected by the drone:

   • How many photos were collected?

   • What is the total memory size of the folder containing all the photos?

   • Perform a cursory Quality Control Check on the photos by opening several of them and checking for blurriness and overall quality. This takes some practice and familiarity with the area being mapped.

Upload Your Photos

1. Log in: Log into the Firmatek Cloud

2. Select your site: Click on “Please select a site” and choose the site you wish to upload photos to.

   Open

   

3. Begin the upload process: Click on the upload icon on the header. This will bring you to the Drone Photo Upload Panel.

    

4. Select photos you wish to upload: Select and upload your drone photos using one of these methods:

   1. You can drag and drop the files onto the drone photo upload panel.

   2. You can use the browsing interface to select files:

      1. Click on “browse your files”

      2. Use the browsing interface that appears to navigate to the folder with your drone photos.

      3. Select the photo files

         1. You can select multiple photos using your choice of a few optional methods:

            1. Click on the Organize drop down and click on “Select All”

            2. Or select the first photo, then scroll down and shift-select the last photo,

            3. Or select the first photo, then hold the control key while you select all the other photos to upload (you can also hold the control key to remove files one at a time from your selection)

         2. If, for some reason, you did not select all of the photos you need to upload, either by accident or because you have more photo files in another folder, do not worry, you will have a chance to upload more photos shortly.

      4. Click on “Open”

5. Once you have done this, the following will happen:

   1. The photos will upload.

   2. As they upload, you will see a thumbnail of each image in the upload panel. When each photo file has uploaded completely to our server, a green checkmark will appear in the corner.

   3. A progress bar appears at the top of the upload panel with text “Uploading X of Y”.

   4. Additionally, as soon as the photo set starts uploading, the map canvas will pan and zoom to show a marker for each drone photo in the appropriate location on the map.

6. At this point you may select more photo files to add to the upload if necessary. Simply repeat the procedure above to browse or drag-and-drop more files. If you choose to drag the files, you must drag them right onto the bottom part of the upload panel where it says “drag and drop here.”

Quality Control

This is a good point at which to make some quality checks.

1. Check Photo Quality: You can check the quality of the drone photos if you have not already done this or you want to do it again. Click on a photo thumbnail to see it in more detail.

2. Check Flight Coverage: Look at the photo markers on the map canvas and ensure you flew all of your target survey area - if there are any gaps or missing areas you (a) may not have uploaded all of the photos or (b) your flight plan may not have been designed to cover the desired area (e.g., you may have used an old flight plan or similar).

3. Now you have the choice to proceed with the upload process or cancel:

   1. Click NEXT to proceed. You need a minimum of 6 photos in order to proceed. This will take you to the Upload Information Form.

   2. Click Cancel to abort. Please note that if you cancel, you will have to upload your drone photos again next time.

Completing the Upload Form

Enter the following information to request your deliverables:

Survey Date: Enter the date of the drone flight.

Site: Be sure to select the correct site here. If you do not see the site on the dropdown list, immediately send an email to support@firmatek.com from your work email with the subject “Need new site immediately for drone upload” and include the following information:

1. Company

2. Information for the new site to be created:

   1. Site name as you want it to appear

   2. Street address

   3. Location (if not exactly at the street address)

   4. Name of the intermediate organization / level, such as “Western Division”

3. List of users who should have access to the site

   1. Their full names

   2. Their work email addresses

4. Person authorizing the access (if not you)

   1. Full name

   2. Email address

   3. Phone number (so we can call if we have any questions)

5. And make a note that this needs to be created immediately so you can upload drone photos.

Drone ID: enter your P4R or P4P number: “P4R-###”. If you own this drone and did not purchase it from Firmatek, label this field “Client Drone”

Correction Method: Select the type of control used to correct your data from the dropdown.

Adding GCPs: If your data was flown with ground control points or using PPK, select the “ADD GCP” button to browse for your control file. If PPK was used, create and upload a zip file including your corrected photo coordinates and control point file. Make a remark in the “Notes” section that this was flown using PPK.

Choose Deliverables: Check the deliverables that you would like created from your drone data. You must select at least one. You will be invoiced (or charged credits) for each deliverable based on your service agreement with Firmatek.

Contact Person: Please enter the following information for the right person to contact if there are any questions about the drone photo upload or deliverable request.

1. Name (required)

2. Phone (required): please also enter an extension, if applicable.

3. Email (required)

Captured By (Primary Pilot): Please provide the name of the primary drone pilot of this flight for record-keeping purposes.

Notes (optional): Enter any details or custom requests. Please type anything you want to tell us about your drone data, GCP file, or deliverable request.

Once the form is complete, submit the photos and upload form to us by clicking Save.

This will take you to one of the deliverables that you requested, typically the orthophoto. Data will populate here once processing is complete.

You will get a notification within the Firmatek Cloud and via email when the deliverable(s) are posted and ready for you to view. For Stockpile Volume Reports, keep an eye out for the Markup Notification.