Area mission — dense grid

Stockpile Volumes, Flown in 10 Minutes

Dense overlap mission over the pile, drop the photos into Muninn cloud, and you've got a 3D point cloud inside an hour. Open in CloudCompare, fit a base plane, get cubic meters.

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Why Muninn

Built for this mission

Dense photogrammetry, fast

80% front + 75% side overlap at 40m AGL = a point cloud tight enough for volumetrics. Muninn's grid generator emits dense WPs by default.

Multi-pile in one flight

Stack multiple polygons. One flight covers the whole yard — every pile measured weekly, not quarterly.

Output lands in CloudCompare or QGIS

LAS point cloud + GeoTIFF orthophoto. Compute volumes in any tool. No DroneDeploy seat needed.

Cheat Sheet

Recommended settings

Starting values for this use case. Tune to your drone, your lighting, and your target.

Mission Type
Area, tight polygon per pile (or multi-poly for yard)
Altitude
30-50m AGL (dense detail)
Overlap
80% front / 75% side
Gimbal
-90° (nadir)
Capture
Hover & shoot for sharpness
Terrain
Follow OFF (piles are above ground — you want them IN the model)

Workflow

How to fly it

  1. 1Draw polygons around each pile — include 5m of ground buffer.
  2. 2Altitude 35m, overlap 80/75, terrain-follow OFF.
  3. 3Fly when light is flat (overcast or midday; avoid long shadows).
  4. 4Upload photos to Muninn cloud; export LAS point cloud.
  5. 5Open in CloudCompare, fit reference plane, compute volume.
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FAQ

Questions we hear

How accurate are drone stockpile volumes?

1-3% of true volume on well-formed piles with good overlap and flat light. Messier shapes (broken piles, mixed aggregate) drop to 3-7%.

Do I need GCPs?

For relative volume (same pile over time): no. For absolute reported volumes to a regulator: yes — 4 GCPs minimum.

Can I run volumes in CloudCompare for free?

Yes. Muninn's LAS output + CloudCompare's free "2.5D Volume" plugin = complete pipeline. No DroneDeploy needed.

Related

Other missions you might fly

Construction Progress Mapping

Weekly orthophotos of the site, flown the same way every time.

Land Surveying & Topographic Mapping

Centimeter-grade ortho and DEM from a consumer drone.

Rural Property & Parcel Documentation

Acreage, fence lines, timber, outbuildings — one flight, full record.

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