Drone Mapping & Aerial Photogrammetry

Aerial photogrammetry workflow: a drone with a camera (or LiDAR), structured flight plan, photos georeferenced from GNSS, processed into orthomosaics, digital surface models (DSMs), point clouds, and textured 3D models. Pairs with Photogrammetry Software for the underlying multi-view stereo, Industrial & Laser Scanners for ground-based capture, Point Cloud Tools for processing, and Maps & Geo for downstream GIS publishing. The OSS heart is OpenDroneMap, which has matured into a credible alternative to Pix4D for many surveys.

Open-source pipeline

• ★ OpenDroneMap (ODM) — free, OSS (AGPL); full pipeline (SfM, MVS, ortho, DSM, DTM, point cloud, textured mesh). CLI core. The FOSS aerial photogrammetry pipeline; production-grade by 2026.
• ★ WebODM — free, OSS (AGPL); Django web UI on top of ODM. Drag-and-drop a folder of photos, get tiled outputs in the browser. The default ODM front-end.
• NodeODM — free, OSS; HTTP API wrapper for ODM; for headless / scripted runs.
• ClusterODM — free, OSS; load-balancer for multiple NodeODMs; scales ODM across machines.
• Lightning Network (OpenDroneMap) — paid hosted ODM; commercial sustainability for the project; useful when you don't want to run your own GPU box.

Paid pro suites

• Pix4D (Mapper / Matic / Cloud / Fields) — paid; the long-standing pro pick. Mapper for surveying, Matic for hi-res / corridor, Fields for agriculture.
• DroneDeploy — paid SaaS; flight planning + cloud processing + map publishing; AEC focus.
• DJI Terra — paid (DJI's own app); tightly integrated with DJI hardware (Matrice / Phantom / Mavic Enterprise).
• Bentley iTwin Capture (formerly ContextCapture) — paid; large-scale reality modeling; AEC.
• Autodesk ReCap Pro — paid; ingest aerial captures into the Autodesk pipeline.
• Skydio 3D Scan — paid; autonomous flight + capture for inspection.
• Esri Site Scan — paid; Esri's drone mapping suite, lives inside ArcGIS Online.

Flight planning (free + paid)

• ★ DJI Pilot 2 / DJI Fly — free with DJI hardware; basic missions (waypoints, mapping grids).
• Litchi — paid; advanced waypoints / orbits for older DJI.
• Dronelink — paid; cross-platform mission planner.
• DroneDeploy Flight — bundled with DroneDeploy.
• Pix4Dcapture / Pix4Dcapture Pro — free flight-planner from Pix4D.
• Mission Planner / QGroundControl — free OSS; ArduPilot / PX4-based custom drones.

LiDAR drones / sensors (specialised)

• DJI Zenmuse L1 / L2 — LiDAR + camera payload for Matrice 300 / 350.
• Yellowscan / Riegl miniVUX / Phoenix LiDAR — pro fixed-wing / multirotor LiDAR.
• Emesent Hovermap — drone + handheld SLAM LiDAR.
• DJI Terra LiDAR processing — paid; companion processing.

Output formats

• GeoTIFF (orthomosaic, DSM, DTM) — read in any GIS; see Maps & Geo.
• LAS / LAZ — point clouds; see Point Cloud Tools.
• OBJ / glTF / 3D Tiles / Cesium ION — 3D textured models for browser display.
• Cloud Optimized Point Cloud (COPC) — modern streaming-friendly LAZ.
• Tiled outputs (XYZ / WMTS) — for slippy-map embedding.

Downstream / GIS

• QGIS (free, OSS) — the FOSS GIS heavyweight; ingest ODM outputs.
• Cesium / Cesium ION — 3D Tiles streaming; see 3D / WebGL.
• PostGIS — store / query the vector products.
• GDAL — convert / reproject everything.

Drone hardware refs

See Scan Capture Hardware for the camera / drone choice.

Pick this if…

• Default FOSS stack: OpenDroneMap + WebODM (self-hosted on a GPU box).
• No infra, OSS pipeline you'd rather rent: OpenDroneMap Lightning.
• Pro surveying / mapping budget: Pix4D Mapper or DroneDeploy.
• DJI hardware, simplest path: DJI Terra.
• AEC reality modeling at city scale: Bentley iTwin Capture.
• LiDAR drone: DJI Zenmuse L2 + DJI Terra (or post-process in CloudCompare).
• Just the post-processing: see Point Cloud Tools and Photogrammetry Software.