Edge processing app to help drone pilots validate image data quality before leaving the field or site.
User Research, Product Strategy, UX/UI Design, Product Management
Field Check is a first of its kind image analysis tool that utilizes edge computing to help users validate the quality of their image data sets captured by their drone. In its promise to be the most complete drone software platform, Measure Ground Control released Field Check as part of its mobile workflow.
The idea for this application arose from the identification of a common user pain point that emerged among our photogrammetry customer base. Users were complaining about errors in their image data sets, and would come to us looking for tips on how to solve the problem. Many rounds of customer interviews were conducted which helped us conclude that customers did not have viable solution to solve the issue.
Customers complained about getting back to the office after a long day out in the field, only to find that their data sets contained overexposed or blurry images, or had gaps in coverage altogether. This would cause problems down stream with quality issues in their photogrammetry, or errors that prevented them from being able to process their imagery into the ortho rectified image maps used in their routine field analysis.
There were two ways that the more savvy users attempted to mitigate the issue. One was a live map tool from a competitor software app that stitched together the live video feed images. However, this did not solve the problem as the app was using the low resolution images from the video feed, and not the high resolution image data on the SD card.
The second solution was to bring a laptop with competitor software installed on it, and once the flight was finished the user would copy the data from the SD card onto the laptop, then process the data locally. This meant another expensive software license, extra equipment to manage, and bloated the time for a faulty QA check. While this was a better solution than the first, it was still not a silver bullet as users would still get back to the office to find issues when using their final, high resolution image processing settings. Field Check is a first of its kind image analysis tool that utilizes edge computing to help users validate the quality of their image data sets captured by their drone. In its promise to be the most complete drone software platform, Measure Ground Control released Field Check as part of its mobile workflow.
The first iteration was a stand alone mobile application where the user would take the SD card from the drone, and plug it into a mobile or tablet device. The analysis would inspect each image individually to flag images with blur or overexposure issues that might cause poor results in the photogrammetry process, as well as identify if there were any gaps in the image array. The result was an onscreen report qualifying if the image capture met the necessary standards to produce a high quality ortho rectified map.
This worked better than the live map solution customers were using because it looked at the actual image data set on the SD card. It also worked better than solution two because the edge computing algorithm looked at a variety of factors to make a calculation for how well the images would be used for the image stitching step. Lastly, it was fast. Depending upon the size of the data set, Field Check could scour the image in just a matter of seconds.
In a later iteration we added a flight plan feature, so that if the user needed to recapture some any problematic or missing images, they could strategically fly only the needed area instead of re-flying the entire mission. In scoping this additional feature we realized that there were technical challenges associated with passing data back and forth between our existing flight app and the new Field Check app.
As a result a strategic decision was made to incorporate the Field Check features directly into the existing Measure Ground Control flight app. This was assumed to give users the maximum benefit, seamlessly, as well as stay ahead of any future competition. The main concern in doing so was this increased the app size beyond a threshold to be downloaded over cellular data. After carefully considering all known implications, it was determined that the pros outweighed the cons.
There were two major launch phases. The first was to release the core features for the RGB camera sensor customers, and the second phase included a modified workflow for multispectral sensor customers. We decided to get a simpler version out and tested, before any additional workflows were to go live. This gave us the opportunity to get critical user feedback earlier, as well as bug reports, and app usage data.
The agriculture community were the early adopters and most frequent users. It was clear that poor data sets affected them the most, and they immediately saw the benefits of Field Check. Roughly half of our enterprise businesses use drones for photogrammetry, and of that percentage agriculture makes up the majority. We also got a glowing response from the discerning drone community on social.
However, the application’s adoption outside of agriculture was slow in the beginning. One of the main challenges was that our primary B2B customers are slow to change their internal process as it requires training. Customer training workshops became critical for awareness and adoption. Additionally, Field Check required an external SD card reader, so we made a plan to send company branded SD card readers to help usher along adoption.
In a later iteration we added a flight plan feature, so that if the user needed to recapture some any problematic or missing images, they could strategically fly only the needed area instead of re-flying the entire mission. In scoping this additional feature we realized that there were technical challenges associated with passing data back and forth between our existing flight app and the new Field Check app.
As a result a strategic decision was made to incorporate the Field Check features directly into the existing Measure Ground Control flight app. This was assumed to give users the maximum benefit, seamlessly, as well as stay ahead of any future competition. The main concern in doing so was this increased the app size beyond a threshold to be downloaded over cellular data. After carefully considering all known implications, it was determined that the pros outweighed the cons.