How to Build a Business Case to Use Drones in Your Construction, Engineering, or Architecture Operations

So, you've heard and read that drones are being increasingly used in the construction industry to realize multiple benefits: they are utilized to complete some tasks in commercial real estate development and construction workflows faster, cheaper, safer, and in many cases, more accurate than using traditional methods. The latest construction industry reports show that drone use cases in construction are expanding, and the number of flights is increasing.

At this point, you may be already convinced that bringing drones, or at least testing the inclusion of drones in your operations is the right thing to do. The main problem you are facing is that you know that trying this technology will take additional resource allocation from your organization (it may be time, budget, manpower, or all the above). And if you don't control any of these resources but see the opportunity and are eager to bring this to your managers, you will need to build a business case and present it to your superiors.

At the end of the day, you also want to keep yourself relevant and further your career in your organization or even create a new position job for yourself, so proposing using cutting-edge technology to make your company's operations more efficient will promote your reputation as forward-thinking and innovative. If you do control the decision-making and resources in your organization, you can contact V1DroneMedia today, and we can help you find the right drone solution and help incorporate drones into your operations.

Building a business case

steps on how to build a business case to incorporate drones into your operations:

1.   Understand the gaps that your organization must fill to build up this capability. They are:

·   Knowledge of national airspace regulations to gauge your ability to fly at any given site (resource allocation and cost – can be a drone pilot or drone operations manager)

·   Part 107 licensed staff or contractors that can legally and skillfully operate drones to accomplish required tasks (staff allocation and training cost, or cost to hire pilots)

·   Purchase drones that are suitable for your use cases (know-how and the cost)

·   Drone equipment maintenance (know-how and the cost)

·   Purchase Drone Insurance (unless your pilot contractors have it and can add your organization as an additional insured)

·   Establish Drone Operating procedures on work sites

·   Photogrammetry software (cost to purchase, human resources, and the know-how to process the data)

2.  Establish use cases in current workflows that can bring value to your organization and translate them into cost savings, a competitive advantage, new added value, or other benefits.

See our blog posts Photogrammetry, Top 4 Drone Uses in Construction, Drone Use in Construction Marketing, Drone Mapping: Unleashing the Full Potential of Aerial Data, What is Drone Mapping, and Drone Mapping Advantages vs. Conventional Mapping Methods for information on a variety of ways to incorporate drones into your operations. Benefits of these use cases include, but are not limited to:

·   Saving time in accomplishing tasks faster (translate that into saving $ as well)

·   Providing more accurate data for some use cases (translate into $ savings)

·   Potential for safety increase (can be one of the organizational goals, or translate it into insurance savings, or other $)

·   Add new value to your operations (translate that into a new product/service offering as a new stream of revenue, new customer benefit to differentiate you from the competition, etc.)

3.   Establish a budget range and other resources (like labor) necessary to acquire this capability.

You will also have to decide if you want to grow this capability from within, or outsource the data gathering and processing – i.e. Make or Buy decision)

4.   Run financial analysis with multi-year scenarios to show the Return on the Investment (ROI) of implementing drone technology into your workflows

5.   Develop a business case presentation that includes:

·   Industry trends with drone adoption data

·   Case studies of organizations that have adopted this technology (for example, see the article Ohio Department of Transportation Makes a Good Case for Their Drone ROI)

·   Pros/cons of not adopting drones

·   Outline your plan to build this capability for your organization

1.   How your organization will use the drones

2.   How drones will incorporate into workflows

3.   What resource investment is required (budget and timeline for labor, hardware, software, insurance, etc.)

4.   Financials with ROI. If you didn't have a financial professional from your workplace develop this model, make sure you can explain your assumptions. I recommend bringing a trusted finance team member on board to help you make the business case with concrete numbers

5.   Present risks of adopting drones into your organization and plans to mitigate them

6.   Finally, present your business case to your decision-makers.

Present your drone use business case

We hope you found this step-by-step guide on building a business case to include drones in your operations valuable.

V1DroneMedia is a Cleveland-based drone services company that was founded by an airline pilot with a background in remote control aviation and electrical engineering, and a marketing professional who has a couple of decades of experience in developing and pitching business cases to leadership (read more about V1DroneMedia here).

If you are looking for a consultant to help you include drones into your operation, help you train your employees to fly drones, build a business case, or are looking to outsource drone flying to a reputable company, contact us today, and learn more about our AEC Drone Services.

Façade Inspections in Cleveland by Drone

Why Building Façade Inspection is Needed

A municipal ordinance was passed in 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio, to require façade inspections for buildings of certain age and height to be completed every 5 years – see the detailed ordinance here. Since this ordinance was passed in Cleveland, 2 other major Ohio cities, Columbus, and Cincinnati followed with passing similar ordinances the same year.

As with most ordinances, Cleveland's ordinance passing was a direct consequence of an accident: a parapet wall of an 1890s-era building in downtown Cleveland crumbled, releasing several bricks onto the sidewalk and the road, thankfully without human casualties this time (a parked minivan without passengers was damaged).

The ordinance that was passed requires buildings that are at least 5 stories or 75 feet in height above grade and are of a certain age (between 30-50 years old), to be initially inspected and re-inspected every 5 years.

How was the building façade inspections performed in the past

In the past, this type of inspection was done by inspectors needing to get close to the walls to visually inspect them and document the conditions, which meant erecting and installing the scaffolding, or elevating them by another method, which gets the person close to the source of inspection, but it is not very efficient:

1.   It takes time for them to move within the scaffolding, or be elevated by a crane platform to every spot that needs to be inspected and documented

2.   It is not the safest for the person involved (a falling accident is a possibility)

3.   It can be expensive with the time and equipment involved, plus the addition of insurance costs when performing this work at dangerous elevations.

These types of inspections can be costly to complete when using traditional methods. Facade inspections can run into $10K-$20K, depending on the size of the building. The cost is usually made up by using large equipment or erecting scaffolding structures, inspectors' time that is necessary to visually inspect and document the conditions of the asset, and the report write-up within the guidelines of such inspection.

As one can see, a large proportion of the cost of such inspection is driven up by the resource and time used to visually inspect and document current conditions effectively. The use of autonomous inspection tools that don't require the investment of such resources can cut costs drastically. Drones do just that for such use cases as facade inspections.

Why Use Drone For Building Façade Inspection

A drone allows for the faster and safer acquisition of the visual inspection and documentation data of the current conditions of the façades. Equipment and personnel need is reduced to a drone capable of shooting hi-res photography, and a drone pilot who is qualified to fly safely and legally and can produce such photography.

This photographic output generated by a drone can then be viewed by a qualified design professional on their computer (engineer or architect), certified in the inspection of the specific elements that make up the façade of the structure, and licensed by the State of Ohio, or an inspection agency that is qualified under the Ohio Building Code for Special Inspectors (as per the ordinance).

In addition to basic aerial photography, drone imagery can be set up to be acquired with certain parameters (automated flight path and special photography settings) with an intent of being processed through software to generate point clouds and 3D models, that help capture the building condition overall. Such models allow the inspector to zoom in at any point for a closer look during the inspection, and even produce measurements between points for needed calculations. These models can be stored digitally and updated with a new model at any point in time.

Looking to hire a drone company for a façade inspection in Cleveland?

If a company considers hiring a drone pilot to perform a façade inspection data capture (whether the building facilities management, an inspector or agency), it will need to do its due diligence - see our article Hiring a Drone Pilot for details on how to do that, or contact us to provide you with the quote to perform façade inspection data capture by one of our skilled drone pilots.

If you want to train someone within your organization to fly drones to capture such data, check out our drone training page for drone training classes offered in Cleveland, and contact us to schedule, or sign up for our drone class notification list.

Drone Photogrammetry And Its Uses

What is Photogrammetry

Photogrammetry is the science of making precise measurements of three-dimensional objects and terrain features from two-dimensional photographs. The input to photogrammetry is multiple photographs of some real-life object or a scene, taken from different angles and locations, and the output is typically a map, a drawing, a measurement, or a 3D model of the subject matter.

How does photogrammetry work?

This process works by using the method of triangulation. It involves taking pictures from a minimum of two different locations. These pictures create lines of sight that lead from each camera to specific points on the object being photographed. The intersection of these lines plays into mathematical calculations that help produce geometric 3D coordinates of the specified points, which sometimes is referred to as “point cloud”.

Photogrammetry triangulation creates 3D object

Photogrammetry history and evolution

Photogrammetry is nearly as old as photography itself. Since its development approximately 150 years ago, photogrammetry has moved from a purely analog, optical-mechanical technique to analytical methods based on computer-aided solutions of mathematical algorithms, and now to digital photogrammetry based on digital imagery and computer vision, without any mechanical hardware. 

Topographic map creation was the first application of photogrammetry, which gave way to the development of simple map-making techniques geared towards the mapping needs of the military during World Wars I and II.

Types of Photogrammetry

Two general types of photogrammetry exist aerial (with the camera in the air) and terrestrial (with the camera handheld or on a tripod).

Terrestrial Photogrammetry

The photos used in photogrammetry can also be taken directly on the ground or from a fixed terrestrial position, such as by a person walking around or a camera mounted to a building.

Aerial (Drone) Photogrammetry

Aerial photogrammetry was introduced with the invention of flight, and drone technology advancements in the last 6 years have made it more accessible and affordable.

Now a drone captures several high-resolution photos over an area at different angles from multiple vantage points. These images are then processed with photogrammetry software (such as Pix4D, AgiSoft, Drone Deploy, etc.) that “stitches” the images together to create point clouds.

Photogrammetry accuracy

Several variables affect the overall accuracy of an aerial map, including camera specifications, the number of photos collected, the photo overlap percentage, the flight altitude, atmospheric conditions (wind speed, air pressure, air density, cloud cover, position of the sun), the GPS signal strength, and the ground sampling distance (GSD). A lower flight altitude yields a smaller GSD, and a smaller GSD yields a more accurate and higher resolution aerial map.

Many of these factors are already accounted for by main drone manufacturers that produce drones for collecting visual data used for photogrammetry processing. These drones are equipped with proper cameras, and the differences between those drones are oftentimes the quality of the camera itself, and the experience of the drone operator in using the drone for photogrammetry data collection (programming the flight path, calibrating, camera settings, etc.)

Relative and absolute photogrammetry accuracy

In aerial photogrammetry, there are such terms as relative (local) accuracy and absolute (global or spatial) accuracy.

Relative accuracy is the measurement of how objects are positioned relative to each other in a reconstructed model (Orthophoto map, Digital Surface Model, or 3D point cloud). Most aerial maps provide a high degree of relative accuracy. So, for simple use cases (measuring distances, volume, and height differences, etc.) relative accuracy should work just fine.

Absolute accuracy refers to the difference between the location of the objects on the reconstructed model and their true position on the Earth (or a geodetic coordinate system). Aerial maps do not provide a high degree of absolute accuracy unless Ground Control Points (GCPs) are used during the drone aerial data collection.

Relative vs. absolute accuracy

What are Ground Control Points (GCPs) in photogrammetry?

Ground control points are points on the ground with known ground coordinates, which can be easily recognizable in aerial photos. The ground coordinates can be measured with traditional surveying methods or an existing map (even Google Earth map), or smart control points that automatically upload position data, such as Aero Points.  To calculate the coordinates for each point on the aerial photography several ground control points’ coordinates should be in place in the survey area and they should be clearly visible in the taken aerial photographs.

Ground Control Point Positioning

Drone Photogrammetry Outputs

The photogrammetry software generates object or area point clouds that enable data visualization, turning these clouds into various outputs for different applications, with many allowing for measurements such as distances, heights, areas, and volumes:

• Orthomosaic maps are stitched from multiple drone photos that have been corrected for lens distortion, with each pixel containing 2D geo-information (X, Y) which enable the generation of measurements such as horizontal distances and surfaces.

Orthomosaic Map

• Topographic maps show details of the relief features using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), giving a better understanding of the surface of the area.

Topographic Map

• 3D Point Cloud is generated from drone images with each point containing geospatial (X, Y, Z) and color information. It provides a model for distance, area, and volume measurements.

3D Point Cloud

3D Model is often generated from the 3D Point Cloud, and is a reproduction of the edges, faces, vertices, and texture of the object or area shot by the drone, and is most useful for visual inspection. This type of model can be used in CAD (Computer-Aided Design) or BIM (Building Information Modeling) software.

3D Model Screenshot

• Digital Surface Model represents the elevation associated with the surface of the earth including topography and all human-made features, containing 2D information (X, Y) and the altitude (Z) of the highest point for the area.

Digital Surface Model

• Digital Terrain Model (also Digital Elevation Model) is a topographic model representing the bare ground surface without any objects like plants or buildings and can be uploaded into and manipulated by computer programs. The model contains 2D information of the area.

Digital Terrain Model. Credit: Jason Stoker

These outputs can be used in many applications in various industries, where the workflows for the collection of this type of data were largely manual and time-consuming. With drone photogrammetry productivity and efficiency of such operations can be improved significantly, and allow for more opportunities to innovate with such easy access to digitized data.

If you are interested in learning more about drone photogrammetry and its applications for your business, Contact us for a free consultation!

Top Drone Applications in Construction Project Management

Many people don't think of drone uses beyond military applications or taking aerial pictures and video for professional photographers, videographers, and filmmakers. The truth is many industries are adopting this multi-use tool at very fast rates, and using drones for construction project management and site visualization is a top trend in the construction industry, according to Project Manager News.

Here are the top 4 drone uses for construction projects

1.   Construction Project Management via Construction Site Visualization

Drone photos and videos taken and shared at regular intervals for construction monitoring to verify progress, changes, and comparison vs. design documentation can improve communication and decision-making between the construction project management team members. When they are looking at the same pictures or video vs. written or verbal reports from several people walking the construction site at different times, there is a lot more clarity and agreement on the state of the site's progress, leading to faster problem identification and decision-making.

360 video and photo technology, when combined with drones can help produce virtual construction site tours (with interior and exterior of the building, see our example here) that can be used for touring the site virtually by team members, customers, or owner's reps, which gives transparency on the project progress, can help resolve conflicts, and speed up decision making.

Site mapping using drone photogrammetry software can be performed in all stages of construction, overlaying processed drone site maps with site plans for utility, wastewater, equipment location, etc.), helping with planning and managing the site.

2.     Drone Inspection (Building, Façade, roof, Equipment)

Remote drone inspections performed by qualified drone pilots can replace hours of human time spent inspecting and tracking the state or location of equipment, structures, and critical assets, decreasing the likelihood of employee accidents and human error when gathering this data visually by walking the site or climbing structures, leading to a more efficient, safer, and cost-effective operation.

Proven drone photogrammetry scanning software such as Drone Deploy, Pix4D, AgiSoft (and others) offer tools to upload and process point cloud data gathered by a drone pilot in a matter of hours, giving real-time actionable information in form of hi-res images and digital twins of structures (3D aerial photogrammetry models) for someone to conduct an inspection in the safety of their office, and provide collaborative tools for the construction team to document photographic evidence and make notes on "problem" areas.

3.     Construction Site Documentation

You can document as-built conditions upon the completion of the project via panoramic photo and video virtual tours, site maps, and 3D model creation that can be integrated into BIM (Building Information Management) and MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing) documentation.

Many photogrammetry drone software tools also offer integration of processed data (aerial maps, 3D models, etc.) with leading construction management software platforms, making the incorporation of this technology into existing workflows easier.

4.     Construction Services Marketing

It is well-documented that aerial photos and videos of construction sites are some of the best ways to market construction services. Construction site drone photos and videos can be used in customer presentations, websites, and social media to showcase progress and finished projects that give the firm credibility and get prospective customers excited about a potential partnership. What can be more gratifying and exciting than seeing a building which took months, if not years to build, go up in a Hyperlapse video in less than a minute?

Finally, the ability to provide construction site visualization and progress reports via photos, video, and virtual tours can be an additional way to make your construction company stand out among competitors when bidding for a construction project, as that's an additional value you are providing with multiple customer benefits.

We at V1DroneMedia specialize in providing safe, legal, and high-quality aerial drone services in and around Cleveland, Ohio, to various industries, including construction. Check out V1DroneMedia Drone Construction Services and Contact Us for a consultation or a project quote.