New photo measurement software for Legacy One internal inspection drone

New photo measurement software for Legacy One internal inspection drone


A major issue with current drone inspections, is the subjective analysis of defects once detected. When inspecting critical assets, quantitative data is absolutely necessary to remove any room for interpretation on vital repair decisions.

Interactive Aerial, a drone manufacturing company focused on developing UAVs for internal infrastructure inspections, released its photo measurement software in January 2018. This post-processing software enables inspectors to accurately record distance measurements of any sized defect observed within digital images.

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The Legacy One aircraft has the ability to take photos with a resolution of over 40 megapixels. This gives inspectors the capability to keep their frame of reference without sacrificing detail, offering the benefit of extreme digital zoom to find even the smallest imperfections. With the proper equipment already packaged on the Legacy One, inspectors can measure aberrations such as the length of cracks and gaps, the surface area of corrosion, and the size of any object located in a photo.

Inspectors and users now have the confidence of taking measurements down to a half centimeter of accuracy. The ability to quickly toggle between imperial and metric units comes standard, keeping flexibility amongst different users.

With the photo measurement software, users can insert points on key areas of the photo and track them using a point data table. By selecting which points to connect, a straight-line measurement will appear between the two points in the user’s selected units. Inspectors can also use the linear distance tool, which makes a ruler-like measurement by clicking and dragging the cursor anywhere on the photo. All points can be exported to a list, or cleared so that a clean working area can be seen again.

Inspectors can access any part of the original photo when zoomed in, by moving around using the arrow keys or by dragging the picture using the pan tool. If an area of interest is outlined with multiple points, the software will give users the calculated surface area of that spot. Personnel can also click the text box icon to label defect areas for other key employees to view at a later date.

The software brings the inspection industry the valuable ability to track defect issues over time. In the past, it was difficult to put a specific value to an imperfection, such as a crack size, from a drone’s photo. Without physically measuring or including a physical ruler in traditional photos, defects were left to subjective opinions from inspector to inspector.

Now, imperfections can be precisely measured and compared with previous numerical data for growth or decay. Using the measurement software with photos from the Legacy One can be the difference in assets being taken offline for repair or not. Companies now have an easier method to capture the right data, and potentially save thousands of dollars in inspection costs and downtime with the tools from Interactive Aerial.

Please visit www.interactiveaerial.com/legacy-one to learn more about the system and software.

3rd Apr 2018

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