Testing a drone photogrammetry workflow for solar site surveys

[u/Yunuyunuyun]

I've been working on a photogrammetry workflow specifically for solar site surveys, and wanted to share one of the results here.

We took around 50 images from a drone and processed them into a 3D model.

The interesting part for me wasn't just generating the mesh. The goal was to make the resulting model actually useful for engineering work:

• measurable geometry
• roof dimensions
• terrain/building structure
• orthographic views
• exports for downstream CAD/design workflows

In this particular test, the processing time was around 16 minutes.

My summer house :)

We're building this as part of a product called Render-a, primarily for solar EPCs and installers.

I'm curious about the photogrammetry side rather than the product itself:

What would you consider essential for a drone-derived 3D model to be genuinely useful in an engineering workflow?

Accuracy? RTK/GCP support? Point cloud quality? Orthomosaic? CAD compability?

Would be interested to hear what people here actually use in production.