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Why D’Avion LLC Does What It Does

D’Avion exists as a business to provide a service to our clients safely. Our safety manual goes into 

great depths of how we are to conduct our daily flights in preparation, maintenance, pre-flights, 

flights, post flights and download/interpreting data for our clients. Clients are our bread and butter. 

It is them whom we serve safely, cheerfully, and provide a quality product. Our goal is to become 

the leader in the Unmanned Aerial System community as well as the World!

What we do:

• Produce actionable, reliable, valuable maps/data (video/photograph) for clients

• Safely and reliable collect, survey, and grade data for clients

• Autonomously process the data we collect into an usable tool for our clients

What areas of the UAS business world do we work?

We are a multifaceted UAS company that has the expertise to provide UAS service all over the 

world in the following areas (but not limited to).

• Precision agriculture aerial surveying

• site inspections via video/photography and patrolling, 

• wildlife/nesting are evaluations and forestry monitoring, 

• public entity support operations, 

• real estate photography;

• inspections/patrolling/monitoring for the public safety/entities pipelines (gas/oil/chemical), 

and communications industries; 

• aerial photography and videography (architecture, land surveying), engineering, television, 

public events, cinematography and newsgathering (and other related professional activities);

• aerial inspection/photography of residential/commercial structures; 

• residential/commercial utility infrastructure; 

• aerial video/photography to assist with search and rescue operations and training for UAS 

operations; 

• geo-phone/geospatial data collection, photography, infrastructure inspection services, and 

disaster area damage and debris assessments/aiding certain rescue operations such as 

locating snow avalanche victims/flood/earthquake/other disasters/lost child/adult dementia;

• cellular/utility/antenna/power line/radio/water tower/bridge inspections/compound surveys 

and painting of same and other large structures; 

• educational/academic uses; 

• aerial imaging, photography, videography and perform closed-set motion picture and 

television filming and production.

We use state of the art UAS and our service includes:

• 2D measurements

• 3D Volumetrics
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• Secure Sharing

• Activity Heat Maps

• Plan Overlays

• Feature Extraction

• Live Feed (depending on area)

Because of the varied services we offer, our UAS fleet will consist of many types of UAS’. All of 

our UAS’ are either partial or fully capable to navigate via GPS waypoints to cover an area that 

needs to be mapped, surveyed, patrolled, inspected, etc. Our UAS fleet also have various 

commercial autopilots along with consumer autopilots (Ardupilot, Pixhawk, NAZA, etc., flight 

controllers) as well as flight controllers (FC) that are unique to the UAS and controllers attached by 

USB such as iOS devices:

• iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air, iPad Air Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad mini 2, iPad 

mini 2 Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Air 2, iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad mini 3, and iPad mini 

3 Wi-Fi + Cellular. 

Our data is processible from RGB, multispectral and thermal, so long as payload is on a 

dampened/stabilized mount or gimbal. 

Our data is sent via USB/memory cards or blue tooth/Wi-Fi to a PC/Mac laptop/desktop computer

where it is processed, as the client desires. We also upload geotagged data images for processing 

and then e-mail the client the data they requested. 

How We Gather Data:

Our image acquisition plan gathers data via a UAS flyover utilizing an overlap process of the 

images and/or the use of sensors on the UAS/the camera/or sensors on the ground.

We normally utilize the following overlap when gathering data from ground sources:

A	75% frontal overlap (with deference to direction of flight)

And a 60% side overlay (between flying paths) 
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Speed and Altitude affect our data gathering, accordingly:

• The further up you go the less detail the camera will acquire. At D’Avion LLC we focus on 

quality and our flight sessions are normally as follows: 

o Recommended settings for our mission planning: 

§ Ground Speed = 3 - 8 meters/second (6.7—17.895 mph)

§ Altitude = 60 - 120 meters (196.85 ft.—393.70 ft.)

For Best Results a Constant Height and Grid Pattern is used:

§ D’Avion LLC normally takes images utilizing an automated grid pattern (Figure 

1). And in doing so our cameras stay at a constant distance over the terrain or 

object being photographed and doing so ensures a high quality photo for the 

client.

Camera Position Affects The Product:

§ Majority of shoots are either straight down or straight at an object.

o Accordingly angle of the camera is critical.

o Either angle the camera straight down.

o Or at the object (i.e. Cell Tower/bridge/water tower)

Angle camera down. 

§ Avoid pointing the camera at the horizon.
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 Unfavorable mapping.

Angle your camera towards the ground for best results. 

 Favorable for inspection. 

Correct Camera Settings Are Paramount

There is always a tradeoff between the camera’s shutter-speed, aperture, & ISO. When the images 

are sharp and have the least noise a better product will be delivered. 

Camera Settings and Shutter Speed Can Make or Break Your Picture Quality

§ Shutter speed allows light to reach the image sensor. 

§ The camera’s auto settings can usually do the job. 

§ Fast shutter speed = image taken it is frozen in time. 

§ Use a fast shutter speed to take sharp photos 

Camera Settings (Aperture) 

§ The aperture of a lens is the diameter of the lens opening 

§ Set Aperture to Auto to keep all images similar in focus—as this will save you 

some headache of a reshoot.

Camera Settings (ISO) 

§ ISO determines how sensitive the image sensor is to light. 

§ The camera’s auto settings can usually do the job depending on light/overcast. 

§ Recommended custom settings for most shoots: 

o Use ISO 100 or 200 when flying in sunny conditions. 
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o Use ISO 400 to 800 if the sky is overcast. 

Camera Settings (Illumination) 

§ Best to obtain images when the scene is well illuminated.

§ Best to obtain images when parameters of camera are well adjusted.

§ Best to obtain cell tower shots are around noontime with the sun overhead 

illuminating your object for proper shots.

Camera Settings (Less Illumination) 

§ When the scene is not illuminated = images will usually be more noisy and less 

sharp, lowering the accuracy of the results for the client.

§ Shutter speed should be fixed between 1/300 sec & 1/800 sec 

§ ISO should be set at low value = doesn’t produce noisy images 

§ Aperture (f) settings for camera should be set at “Automatic” 

§ Make sure the stabilization disabled as it will interfere with the 

algorithms

§ Intervalometer should be set to take 1 photo every 2 seconds 

§ 4000 pixels by 3000 pixels = is the recommended image size 

 

At D’Avion LLC we often use georeference to get a better image. 

How to Get Georeference Images at the Job Site:

§ We use GPS & Wi-Fi enabled cameras to obtain georeference images. 

§ Peruse your UAS/camera user manual for instructions as each UAS/camera is 

slightly different

§ Each georeferenced image will have the following metadata: 

○ Altitude, Longitude, and Latitude, 

Processing with Georeferenced Images is Critical to a Quality Map

Utilizing georeferenced images will produce:

§ Fast and high quality maps. 

§ Offers higher map accuracy. 

D’Avion LLC desires to hit the target each time it does a job!