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Upload and Process Drone Imagery

Take raw drone images from an OTM capture flight to a processed orthomosaic ready for prescription.

Agronomist
Pilot

When you need higher resolution than satellite can provide, you fly an OTM (orthomosaic) capture mission with the drone, upload the raw images to the portal, and wait for processing to finish. Once it's done, the dataset shows up as a selectable source in the Map Prescription wizard.

This tutorial walks through the full flow.

What you'll need

  • A drone OTM capture flown over your plot (vertical camera, ~80% overlap, fixed altitude — see your drone's manual for OTM mission setup).
  • The raw images (JPG or RAW) saved locally — typically 200–2000 images per flight.
  • A reasonable internet connection. Upload time scales linearly with image count.

The walkthrough

  1. Open the Map Prescription wizard

    Open Map Prescription → Create New.

  2. Pick the farm and field

    Step through Step 1 (Farm & Field) and Step 2 (Plot). The orthomosaic must overlap the plot you're prescribing for, so the field/plot setup matters.

  3. Switch the source to Drone

    On Step 3 (Processing), toggle the source selector from Satellite to Drone (OTMc).

  4. Open the Upload drawer

    Click Upload Drone Images. The drawer opens with title "Upload Images" and description "Upload drone images to create a prescription map."

  5. Confirm the farm and field

    The drawer's form fields default to whatever you picked in the wizard. Confirm:

    • Farm — correct farm.
    • Field — correct field.

  6. Drop in the images

    Either drag the entire folder onto the drop zone ("Drag and drop images here") or click to browse.

    The portal validates:

    • Per-file size against the max (visible in the drop zone hint "Max file size: {size}").
    • Total file count against the maximum.
    • File types (.jpg / .jpeg / .png are accepted; .raw varies by drone).

    Errors surface inline:

    • "File size exceeds the maximum limit of {size}"
    • "Maximum number of files reached"
    • "File type not supported"

  7. Start processing

    Click Start Processing. Watch the progress indicator.

    The portal calls the analysis API with all the images, returns a job ID, and starts a background pipeline. You'll see "Uploading" → "Processing...".

  8. Wait for completion

    Close the drawer (the job continues in the background). Switch to the Photogrammetry tab on the Map Prescription home page.

    Job states:

    • Pending — queued.
    • Uploading — files transferring to the processor.
    • Queued — waiting for a worker.
    • Processing — orthomosaic being computed (the slow step).
    • Completed — done.
    • Failed — processing failed. Inspect the error and retry.
    • Canceled — you stopped it.

    Typical wall-clock times: 5–30 minutes per 100 acres depending on image count.

  9. Open the processed dataset

    Once status reads Completed, click View in Map on the job card. You're returned to the prescription wizard with the orthomosaic loaded.

    Toggle the NDVI (Health) layer to see the computed NDVI raster.

  10. Continue to the Zone Editor

    From here the flow is identical to satellite-driven prescriptions. Click Save & Proceed and configure zones in the Zone Editor.

    See Create Your First Prescription Map for the zone configuration steps.

Common issues

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Last updated Oct 20, 2018