Drone Deploy is an analytics and automation package that uses drones to create accurate 3D terrain and architectural models.
You conduct a reconnaissance overflight first, then use its imagery to specify the features you want to map. The app programs a flight-path that will capture the imagery from which the geometry can be derived, by comparing images of the same features from different angles. The 3D model is skinned with the bitmaps captured on the same flights, yielding an explorable, manipulable model.
Of course, once you have such a model, you can feed it to a slicer, create an STL, and run it through a 3D printer of your choosing.
The company highlights industrial uses of its tech: a soy grower who used models to optimize agricultural yields (a potato farmer is doing something similar) and a construction manager who uses it to stay abreast of major projects that are too far apart to visit regularly.
How to Use a Drone to Make 3D Printed Models
[Ian Smith/Drone Deploy]
(Thanks, Nancy!)
