Mapping Plans

A mapping plan is an generated plan based on the information entered into the Mapping Menu. The tablet uses information on the sensor field of view, desired overlap, and mapping altitude to auto generate the flight plan. This also includes auto triggering of the sensor on the flight legs. The following steps will depict how this is done:

Creating an Area

  1. Open the planning menu by selecting the Blue Plus icon. Next you will select Areas and then Create New Area.

  2. Define your desired mission area by simply tapping the locations of vertices that will define the edge of the area on the map. Note that the final vertex is defined by double tapping the starting vertex.

  3. Now that you have finalized your area, you are ready to generate a set of waypoints that will accordingly map/analyze that area. This is done by single-clicking any part of the area and selecting the Map feature of the pop-up menu.

Mapping Menu

The mapping menu is used to select the mapping parameters for your area. It automatically pops up when you select Map from the area menu. This allows the SwiftTab to auto generate Mapping Plans with the correct spacing and trigger locations for the sensor. The image below shows the default configuration window.

Next we look at the parameters in this menu:

  • Altitude Mode: These two radio buttons select between Terrain Following and Fixed Altitude. The terrain following mode is recommended for most camera sensors since it will maintain a constant height over the terrain for mapping. The fixed altitude mode is when you'd like the aircraft to maintain a specific height MSL.
  • Altitude Reference: The altitude reference area will be different for Terrain Following or Fixed Altitude. This is shown in the next figure. In terrain following mode you can either select the altitude of your mapping (most cases) or the GSD you'd like to get from your sensor. For fixed altitude you have the options of above mean sea level or above your location, based on the ground control station.

  • Volumetric: One advanced feature is the Volumetric mapping box. Selecting this brings up an alternative menu to the lateral separation menu below. It will generate a map with multiple levels. This is useful for missions such as gas sampling. The user can enter the altitude range, spacing of the flight lines, and whether to start at the top or bottome altitude.

  • Lateral Separation: This area has two radio buttons to choose; you can select either:

    • Sensor: This allows the tablet to create the plan based on a specific sensor selected from the dropdown menu. You must also select the cross-track and along-track overlaps. Below are diagrams depicting the effects of modifying these values. Increasing the along-track overlap will simply force the payload (in most cases a camera) to trigger faster, increasing the cross-track overlap will lead to tighter mapping plan leg spacings.

    • Fixed Width: This radio button allows you to simply select the separation of the flight lines.
  • Waypoint Ordering: These are two radio buttons where you can have the aircraft draw the mapping plans with a Zamboni pattern, which results in the shortest time to map an area. Alternatively you can select Sequential which always maps in order from one side of the plan to the next.

Plan Modification

Rotation: The area mapping of the SwiftTab allows for 15 degrees rotations of the mapping plans by simply double tapping the area the plan was defined on (after the initial mapping waypoints have been generated).

Once you have finalized the mapping waypoints so that they suit your mission, simply send the plan by selecting a waypoint and using the Send Plan feature of the pop-up menu.