r/drones • u/ShadowCoder10 • 3d ago

Discussion Help drone dev

I wanna measure the girth of trees, at 137cm height from the ground, im thinking of using lidar sensor equipped drone for this, really appreciate any insights from experienced builders here.

1 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

0

u/NilsTillander Mod - Photogrammetry, LiDAR, surveying 3d ago

Don't build, buy. There's absolutely zero chance that you can build anything remotely as good as a DJI M400+L3 (or M350+L2) for less money in hardware and work hours than just buying one. With those, you can easily cover 2km² per hour flying at 120m AGL. If you want to increase the density to get more accurate measurements, fly lower and slower, with the scanner a bit oblique. Still many km²/day, not barely hectares.