I am currently processing a large project (~1,200 acres with 11,510 42mp images) in Pix4DMapper. I obtained a trial license of Pix4DMatic for testing purposes. I am disappointed in the results produced by Matic compared to Mapper.
First, Mapper produced a more accurate model than Matic. I use a WingtraOne PPK UAS, which typically produces ~0.1ft accuracy without any GCPs. I processed the calibration step using both products before marking any GCPs. Initially it appeared both products produced very accurate results. Then I marked 20 of the 40 GCPs and re-optimized both projects. The GCP residual errors were excellent for both projects. Then I visually inspected the 20 GCPs that I didn’t mark to compare to the targets. All 20 points in Mapper were extremely accurate (within 1-2 pixels). In Matic, some (3-5) of the points were much more inaccurate (>10 pixel error).
I decided to proceed to the DSM generation step with each product. There are a few clusters of trees in the project area, which could produce areas of no data in the point cloud. Mapper produced a DSM with no holes, while Matic had several large holes of no data. This will result in holes in the ortho.
Then I checked the vertical accuracy of the DSMs against the 20 GCPs that were not used in the model (check points). The accuracy of the Mapper DSM was less than 0.1ft for all check points. However several of the Matic checkpoints were off by over 1ft vertically.
Overall I think Matic has promise, but I greatly prefer Mapper, even for large projects. Matic seems too much of a black box compared to Mapper. There are very few processing options and virtually no feedback on processing progress. For very large projects, I like to see the progress of each sub-step. I also like the ability to tweak processing options for optimal results. Also having to geotag 11.500 images adds several hours to my workflow, as Matic doesn’t support import of geotags from a text file.
I was also very impressed with Mapper’s ability to handle a project of this size in a single project. I do have plenty of processing resources, so I’m sure that helps. (Dual 16 core 3.0ghz AMD EPYC, 384GB of memory, 2TB NVME, and nVidia Tesla T4).
Hopefully Matic will continue to develop so that it will be a viable replacement to Mapper. But I don’t think it’s there yet.