Inspection Essentials
One major benefit of drone inspections is keeping inspectors out of dangerous or hard-to-reach locations.
What is risk reduction?
This roof-inspection shot is a single top-down image that covers the entire site.
What is an overhead shot?
Exposure is determined by three primary camera settings: ISO, aperture, and this setting that controls how long the sensor is exposed to light.
What is shutter speed?
During this type of flight, the drone circles a designated subject to capture imagery or video from multiple angles.
What is a Point of Interest (POI) flight?
This is a point in space defined by latitude, longitude, and altitude that can also include instructions such as gimbal angle or taking a photo.
What is a waypoint?
Because drone inspections create data that can be archived, inspectors can use it to do this over time.
What is track asset conditions?
These roof-inspection images are top-down, overlapping photographs typically collected in a lawnmower pattern.
What are surface overhead shots?
Increasing this camera setting makes the sensor more sensitive to light, but can add "noise" or grain to the image.
What is ISO?
During a POI rotation, parts of the subject will inevitably experience this lighting condition, which may require exposure adjustments.
What are shadows?
Waypoint missions reduce pilot workload and make it easier to reproduce flights with a high degree of this.
What is accuracy (or consistency)?
Most aerial inspections begin with this type of shot before the aircraft moves methodically around the site and captures areas of focus.
What is an overview shot?
For this type of roof shot, the drone captures close-up, overlapping images while moving around the structure's perimeter.
What is an edge detail shot?
A higher f-stop, such as f/11, increases this, meaning more of the image will be in focus.
What is depth of field?
Before inspecting a tower, a pilot should know this measurement because it affects the required standoff distance.
What is the tower's kilovoltage (kV)?
Pilot 2 offers two methods for creating waypoint flights: "Set Waypoint" and this method, which is created while the drone is flying.
What is Live Mission Recording?
Unlike automated flight, this type of flying allows a pilot to adjust quickly when conditions change during an inspection.
What is manual flight (or manual flying)?
When documenting a specific subject of interest on a roof, this shot connects the broader roof-facet view to the close-up detail images.
What is a transition shot?
This exposure-assistance tool displays a graphical representation of image brightness and can help a pilot decide whether exposure needs to be adjusted.
What is a histogram?
A tower POI inspection begins its first orbit this many feet above the tower, with the camera gimbal angled downward.
What is 25-50 feet?
Before flying a saved waypoint mission, pilots should confirm RTH altitude, maximum altitude, sensors, and this setting that determines what happens if communication with the aircraft is lost.
What is Signal Lost Action?
This preflight planning tool is a complete log of required inspection images and helps prevent omissions while improving efficiency on site.
What is a shot list?
Using the vertical gridline technique taught for surface overhead imagery should produce approximately this much overlap between consecutive photographs.
What is 66.7%?
An inspector wants to reveal details hidden in a shadowed area. Adjusting this exposure setting to a positive value will intentionally brighten the image.
What is Exposure Value (EV)?
These tower components may force the pilot to perform part of a POI rotation manually because they can interfere with an automated orbit near the tower.
What are guy wires?
Setting waypoints by flying the drone to each desired location has this advantage over creating them while the drone remains on the ground: it reduces guesswork when determining this camera position.
What is the gimbal angle?