Flying drones isn’t just fun, if you’re in solar you know it has real value, too. A good, well-planned flight captures the roof in detail: every vent, every pitch change, every tree throwing shade.
The trouble, of course, is what comes after the flight. Until now, no single platform could give you drone mapping with Aurora-level remote design accuracy, and everything else it takes to get from first design to signed permit. So you’ve really had a couple options, and neither one is ideal.
Option one: stitch tools together. You capture and process the flight in one app, then move everything into another to design, sell, finance, and permit the job. Every hand-off slows the process, and every measurement you re-enter is another chance for errors to sneak in.
Option two: pick one tool and live with the gaps. You might give up remote design accuracy on your non-drone jobs, or you might have to settle for clunkier financing workflows, or permit packages that need extra cleanup before they go out. Probably both.
Either way, you pay for it, and the drone you invested in never quite delivers the speed it should.
Not any more…
With Aurora Drone Mapping you no longer have to mind that gap.
Now everything you need for drone mapping is available right in Aurora. You fly the drone and take your pictures (or video!). Then? Just upload your images (or video!), and Aurora turns them into a measured, design-ready roof model. You haven’t had to leave the platform, or stitch together a couple solutions, or settle for less than ideal models or accuracy.
Aurora builds three things from your flight:
- A LIDAR surface for accurate heights and pitches
- A scaled map image of the site
- A 3D mesh you can measure directly
And since it comes from your flight, it shows the roof as it looks today, not as it looked whenever the last satellite passed over.
From there, it’s all you. You can design straight from the drone data, or have Aurora’s experts build a roof model on top of it. Either way, it’s the same Aurora you already use to design, sell, finance, and permit. Now it just works from your drone data, too.
How it works
Drone Mapping in Aurora takes four basic steps:
- Capture your data. Fly the site and shoot stills or video. If you already process flights in another tool, you can bring that pre-processed data instead.
- Upload it to Aurora. Drop your files into Project Overview or Sales Mode, wherever you’re working on the job.
- Pick your path. Choose standalone drone mapping, or add an Expert Model at upload. The Expert Model gets you a design-ready roof model, plus the option to merge it into a design you’ve already sold to true it up.
- Review and accept. Your drone map, LIDAR, and 3D mesh go straight into the project, ready for Expert Design, AI Roof, or manual modeling.
That’s the whole workflow. For more details on each step, and a more thorough tech explanation, check out the release notes.
See the video below for a demo of drone mapping a new design.
How it helps
So why does this matter for your business? It comes down to four things.
Every Aurora capability, now with drones. Design, financing, proposals, and permitting all work exactly the way they do today. No trade-offs, just another way to capture the site.
Accurate, with or without a drone. Listen, Aurora’s remote design is already accurate, all those sites you can design without a flight? You can totally still do that. But for those sites where the data isn’t as up to date as you want, or have seen recent changes, or you just want another perspective, you can now do that. What a drone adds is a proposal tailored to that exact site before the sale, or a true-up to verify the design after it.
It’s included in your subscription, standard price for roof models. Drone mapping costs nothing extra. Period. If you add a roof model, it costs the same as a roof model from any other source.
Accurate data where the satellite map runs out. Where satellite data is good, your process doesn’t have to change. On those projects where satellite data might come up a little short (rural sites, new construction, or markets outside current coverage) you just fly the site, and you have the data you need.
Try Drone Mapping
There you have it. Drone workflows are now native in Aurora. Put another way, you don’t need to leave Aurora, or piece together solutions, or sacrifice accuracy, or add steps to make flying drones part of your projects in Aurora. You can send same-day proposals built from your drone data, run true-ups after the sale, and keep every tool you already use, from first design to signed permit.
Your drone already captures the roof in detail. Now you can use that data with no compromises.
Try it on your next project. Upload your flight in Project Overview or Sales Mode and see how quickly it becomes a design-ready roof model.
Stay tuned for more Drone Mapping best practices and tips. In the meantime, check out the release notes for all the details.
