Case Study: SkyDrones achieves 3D chimney inspection and remote measurement with Pix4Dmapper

Industrial inspection of a 104-year-old chimney

SkyDrones, a Brazilian industrial inspection company, needed a way to inspect a 104-year-old, 80-meter chimney at a brewery/shopping center using only photographs captured by drones. They wanted to know whether inspection images could be turned into a usable 3D model, and tested this with Pix4Dmapper from Pix4D.

Using oblique drone imagery from GoPro-equipped UAVs, Pix4D processed 822 images at 2 cm GSD and reconstructed the chimney and surrounding structure in full 3D. SkyDrones reported the results were “astounding,” enabling remote measurement and navigation from their office 1,500 km away, and Pix4D highlighted that the UAV-plus-Pix4Dmapper workflow was a faster, cheaper alternative to LiDAR for industrial inspection.

SkyDrones

Ulf Bogdawa

Chief Executive Officer