Aerial Imagery

Community drone mapping. A pilot flies one square of the map, uploads the photos, and a few hours later the area is on the map as a sharp aerial layer — often as a 3D model too — free for anyone to use, including everyone who will never own a drone.

How a survey works

  1. 1Switch on the aerial grid on the map. The map is split into fixed squares, about 250 metres across in Portugal; squares that already have imagery are shaded and carry the date they were last flown.
  2. 2Pick a square and check that you can reach it from the take-off point you have in mind — the planner answers that before you drive anywhere.
  3. 3One click downloads five ready-made flight plans for a DJI drone: one straight-down survey and four angled ones for facades. Fly as many as the terrain and your batteries justify.
  4. 4Upload the photos as JPG straight off the memory card. Several flights, even on different days, can belong to the same mission.
  5. 5Processing runs on its own — stitching, georeferencing, 3D. You follow the progress on the mission card, and the result joins the public map.

Before you drive out: is the square flyable?

Distance
A straight-line radius around your take-off point — 500 m, 2 km or 5 km. A drone flies straight, so this is a circle, not a road distance.
Terrain in the way
The mission holds a constant altitude measured from your take-off point, with no terrain following. Where the ground inside a square climbs close to that altitude, the square is marked blocked. The altitude slider stops at 120 metres, the legal ceiling for open-category flights.
Radio line of sight
A ridge between you and the square can cut the link to the controller even where the drone itself would clear the terrain. Those squares are marked separately: flying there would work, steering it would not.
Restricted airspace
Official geo-zones can be drawn as their own layer — for Portugal, the national ANAC dataset. A square inside a hard prohibition at your flight altitude is marked restricted; zones that merely need a permit are drawn as advisory outlines for you to judge.

A planning aid, not a clearance

The terrain data knows hills, not masts, cables, trees or the edge of a building, and the line-of-sight check is geometry rather than a radio model. Temporary restrictions — NOTAMs, events, short-notice closures — are not in the zone layer at all. Wind and cold are not modelled either, so keep a battery reserve. The map saves you wasted drives; checking the current rules and holding the right permits stays with you as the pilot.

What the upload expects

  • JPG straight from the drone — what places the mission on the map is the position the camera writes into every photo.
  • All photos of one mission belong to one square, and at least part of the flight has to be shot straight down: angled photos alone cannot make a usable map.
  • A square can hold several missions flown at different times, which is what makes it possible to compare the same place across seasons.
  • Angled photos can be added later — the mission is rebuilt from everything you have flown.

Your photos become a shared asset

Imagery you upload, and the maps and 3D models built from it, are published under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0: anyone may use them with attribution, and anything derived stays equally open. You confirm this when you upload. What a licence cannot settle stays with the pilot: privacy where faces, plates or private property are recognisable, and the flight rules of your country.