Using Pix4D for rtk drone images

PIX4Dmapper PIX4Dmapper Questions/Troubleshooting
1

Hello,

I’ve previously used the pix4d mapper quite extensively with drones without rtk features. Recently I changed the employer and now I’ve access to a phantom 4 rtk drone. However the guys at my new work use bentely contextcapture because they claim that pix4d can’t utilize the precision of the rtk drone. Is that really so?

We are currently evaluating our license plans and I might be able to get us to use pix4d instead of contextcapture. But for that I’ll have to have sound arguments for how to process images from rtk drones.

In addition I’m also curious to whether the same is valid for processing images in pix4dcloud

2

Hi Stefan,

Thanks for posting. PIX4Dmapper can indeed process RTK imagery. You can import the images seamlessly and PIX4Dmapper will read the EXIF tags and will give more confidence to the location of your images. Let me advise going with PIX4Dmatic as it’s the product that is receiving all the updates.

The same applies to PIX4Dcloud, you can process RTK imagery. The only difference is that you will have fewer possibilities to play with the processing settings. But, you will not be utilizing your machine for processing, of course.

I hope this helps.

3

How does pix4d deal with the eventlog, ppkrwa, rinex, and timestamp files from the phantom 4 rtk?

4

If you have those files, you might not be running RTK but PPK, which is not supported in Pix4D. You will have to correct the images first with a 3rd party software before processing with us.

5

I’m positive I’m running rtk, the controller is set up that way and the drone requires rtk fix to take off for the missions. Maybe it’s not necessary to include those files in the processing at all? My experience with rtk drones is limited.

6

Hi Stefan,

Pix4D does not need Rinex data, timestamp, etc to process an RTK’d dataset, because the images have already been corrected during the flight. You would only need those additional files if you ran your project as PPK. In which case, as Jose mentioned above, would need a 3rd party software to correct the images.

Hope that helps!

7

Thanks!

An additional question about matic (going a little off topic now): Can it handle a national geoid? Specifically the Norwegian NN2000 geoid.

8

Yes, Pix4Dmatic supports NN2000 - EPSG:5941. For more supported vertical coordinate systems, check out our list here.

1 Like
9

Hi Jose, do you have any recommendations for 3rd party software to correct images with the correct geoid exif data? Thanks

10

Hi wail,
Typically, a PPK drone will come with its own software to run the corrections. What kind of PPK drone do you have?