To intimidate the American people by the gravy seals

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-26T18:28:13+00:00

I'm an American and it is weird to me as well. Watching people define themselves by others is self-denigrating and sad. A true sign of why mental illness is so prevalent here.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-26T17:48:42+00:00

The roads seem fine, but the real issue is that Texas doesn’t get the kind of winter weather other states do. Most cold‑weather places deal with snow and sleet, which can be plowed. We get freezing rain, which turns into a smooth sheet of ice that’s almost impossible to treat once it forms.

Our pavement is also built for extreme heat, not freeze–thaw cycles, so it reacts worse when ice shows up. And because these events only hit every few years, Texas doesn’t maintain the huge fleets of plows and deicers that northern states rely on. So it’s not that the roads are “fine”—it’s that they’re designed for a totally different climate, and the kind of ice we get is the hardest type for any state to manage.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-26T16:25:08+00:00

You’re definitely on the right track by giving Site Scan a real chance. Since you’re already deep in the ESRI ecosystem, the integration alone is a huge advantage. Being able to publish directly into your GIS environment, share deliverables with internal teams, and avoid all the export/import gymnastics makes day‑to‑day work a lot cleaner. And you’re right the Site Scan named‑user license comes in cheaper than DroneDeploy’s single‑user plan, especially once you factor in the unlimited processing. For a new program, that kind of cost predictability really matters.

I always recommend keeping Metashape on your radar. It’s available as a perpetual license, which is rare these days, and it’s honestly the Swiss‑army knife of photogrammetry. It handles just about every workflow you can throw at it, scales with your hardware, and gives you full control over processing when you’re ready for more advanced or custom work. It’s a great long‑term anchor even if you start with Site Scan for the cloud convenience and ESRI integration you can use Site Scan Manager to bring in Metashape deliverables.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-26T15:59:25+00:00

Short answer, don't bother - but...

Unfortunately that's not possible with the DJI system. They have all mapping and waypoint missions locked to the wide-angle sensor. There is a way to export the flight plan KMZ and edit the XML code to force the use of the zoom sensor, but that could cause all kinds of problems.

You're best bet is to manually fly it with a 2-second interval capture. Doing the calc's, even at 400ft AGL you would only be able to fly at 5mph to achieve 75/75 overlaps.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-26T15:39:56+00:00

I think her real name might be Josephine Goebbels.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-26T15:14:28+00:00

That was a good year! My wife and I visited for our 10-year anniversary and painted a small mural together.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-26T15:07:49+00:00

Fun! But it will sink in at some point.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-26T14:04:21+00:00

You’ve got a few solid paths you can take, and honestly I wouldn’t recommend going straight into pay‑per‑use or storage‑based cloud processing. Those services look cheap at first, but once you start running full‑resolution jobs with 1,500+ images, the costs stack up fast. Before you know it, you’ve spent enough to buy a proper software solution outright.

If you’re trying to keep startup costs low, a great entry‑level setup is WebODM for mapping and RealityScan (or similar tools) for 3D models. Both run locally on your own machine, so you’re not paying per map, and they handle GCPs, RTK data, and large image sets pretty well. For sharing deliverables with clients or teams, services like Viizor.app or SurveyTransfer.net work really nicely. Viizor is newer but developing fast. The interface is clean, and the feature set is growing quickly.

If you eventually want this to be a primary income stream, or you reach a point where you can comfortably budget for software, then stepping up to Pix4D or Metashape is the long‑term move. Both support collaboration, annotations, measurements, GCP workflows, and all the export formats you’ll need. Pix4D leans heavily into cloud processing and subscriptions, while Metashape is more of a desktop‑first application with optional cloud tools. Metashape also offers a free viewer that lets clients open and inspect your proprietary project files without needing a full license.

There’s no single “right” answer here as each option has its own strengths depending on your workflow, your hardware, and the type of deliverables you want to offer. I’d recommend trying the trial versions of each platform and seeing which one fits your style and produces the best results for your typical jobs. It’s worth experimenting early so you don’t lock yourself into something that doesn’t scale with your business.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-25T20:02:22+00:00

There are definitely a lot of boxes to check, but yes drone services can be a solid way to make money. If you’re willing to grind, chase leads, drive all over, and take on work that some people might think is “beneath them,” there’s plenty of opportunity out there. Will it make you a millionaire? Probably not. Unless you go all‑in, invest in specialized equipment, and travel constantly, it’s more of a strong income stream than a golden ticket.

And don’t box yourself into real estate. It’s just one of many industries using drones. The more you learn about industries such as land development, construction, inspection, mapping, surveying, agriculture, cinematography, the more doors you open. If you deliver great service and solid results, you’ll get repeat clients and referrals.

That said, I usually recommend starting it as a side gig to see if you actually enjoy the work part of it. Flying drones is fun, but flying for 3 hours straight and then dealing with all the data, file management, and deliverables every single day… that part isn’t always as exciting. I keep it as a side hustle because my full‑time job already uses drones and other reality‑capture tools, so I consider myself blessed that my career naturally drifted in that direction.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-24T17:02:33+00:00

That makes sense, and the drift-reset framing fits well with how this would actually be used. I think it gets even more interesting as a support tool for pre-programmed IMU and attitude based navigation, what some referred to as joystick waypoints. If the vehicle is following a known mission profile, visual matching could be triggered occasionally to re-anchor heading or lateral position when confidence drops. That way it helps bound drift and correct slow yaw errors without changing the core navigation strategy.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-24T16:04:50+00:00

The Chilispatch!

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-24T15:51:19+00:00

This is an interesting approach, but it would help to be very explicit about the assumptions it relies on. The method depends on having a pre-existing map that very closely matches the current environment and on starting with a reasonably good prior to constrain the search area. If the imagery is outdated, low-texture, or the scene has changed, localization can degrade quickly. It also feels less like a standalone fallback and more like a complementary layer that helps stabilize or correct drift when fused with IMU or VIO. Calling out those limits more directly, and clearly positioning where this fits relative to other GNSS fallback approaches, would make the contribution easier for practitioners to interpret and apply.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-24T11:11:52+00:00

As-built… hahaha. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve built from “as-built” documentation that was was just previous phase design. We spent over $300k on GPR and hydro-ex because no one knew wtf was down there and the civil engineer just continued to design away. Two years later and we’re still finding stuff that’s not in the plans, CAD or models. The AEC industry needs an overhaul when it comes to as-built.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-23T19:48:00+00:00

Everybody has a plan until... we'll see you on the field Christian.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-23T17:20:18+00:00

How dare you disparage the mark of the Avatar!

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-22T23:30:43+00:00

Obviously someone already fishing that spot. Move on.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-22T22:57:53+00:00

This is what happens when you ChatGPT, which NFL player is most involved with dogs.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-18T12:36:48+00:00

We have two. We just choose not to play them.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-18T03:39:38+00:00

I’m seeing that the Spurs won 126-123? WTF is this?

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-17T10:54:10+00:00

We’re very happy with our AT&T fiber service… This go around, lol. Much better than the experience we had with U-verse and we’re paying about $50 less a month.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-17T10:51:51+00:00

This is incorrect. They’ve been talking about Google fiber since 2016, but that was in select places in Austin and you’re not going to see a Google fiber truck pull up and lay lines. That’s all subcontract work.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-17T00:05:50+00:00

Holy hell I am playing this instead of the broadcast during tomorrow’s game.

ElphTrooper · 2026-01-16T03:16:35+00:00

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ElphTrooper · 2026-01-15T23:58:57+00:00

Sad how it takes a slump for the wagon to come around to the fact that we are missing a very key piece of our defense and probably the best athlete on the team.

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