Drone News & Articles

Drone real estate photography pricing can vary across the board, as some photographers may charge by the hour or by the size of a property. Thumbtack states the average cost for drone photography is $240-$340 per project, citing the above factors as contributors to variations in pricing (2018 Average Aerial Photography Cost). HomeJab’s drone real estate photography pricing is based on flat rate packages that include the amount of time it may take to complete the shoot and the many other factors that go into drone photography.

Drone photography has become immensely popular in residential and commercial real estate, but there are a few different aspects to consider before deciding on a company to hire.

Is it legal?

Drone Photography can take any listing from ordinary to luxury, but operating and using a drone legally is not as simple. The first commercial drone was made available to the public in 2010 (Vision Online Marketing, The History of Drones in the US). By 2015, millions of drones were being used for recreational and commercial use, causing public controversy over privacy concerns and flight regulations. Then came drone registration and licensing by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Today, all drones must be registered with the FAA, even for hobby or recreational use. For commercial use, such as real estate photography, a Part 107 certification or FAA Exemption is required. A photographer has to take these requirements into consideration before they can begin scheduling and pricing out their drone photography services (FAA, Getting Started).

FAA certification or exemption is a must when shopping around for a drone photographer. You don’t want to run into any legal problems with the FAA. HomeJab has acquired a 333 Exemption from the FAA to fly drones commercially for the real estate industry. This ensures our photographers do not need to worry about this additional exemption, and neither do our customers.

What’s included in Drone Real Estate Photography Pricing?

It can be difficult to know what is included in the initial price tag of a drone photography shoot. Large estates, acres of land, and commercial lots can benefit greatly from drone photography, but how long does it take to shoot listings of that size? Depending on the skills and experience of a photographer, it can take anywhere from one to five hours to complete a shoot (DronesMag).

In addition to drone photography, you may want to consider the cost of having additional ground level photos and a video tour of the listing. This may not be useful for a commercial lot or bare land but could be a necessity for a residential home. Some photographers may be able to offer additional services as an add-on, but this can bump up the cost significantly. At HomeJab, our drone real estate photography pricing can be packaged with our other services. This gives you a guaranteed price up front, at a better rate.

Drone real estate photography pricing has many moving parts that can contribute to variations across the board. The more you know upfront about a company, the better you will understand the actual cost.

As the head of a 700-year-old winemaking dynasty, Lamberto Frescobaldi is overseeing a construction project in one of his Tuscany vineyards using technology that would have seemed otherworldly to his ancestors: high-flying drones.

Ubiquitous as toys for the gadget-minded — and sometimes for purposes like spying and dropping explosives — drones have become indispensable tools in construction and real estate. Their relatively low cost and ease of handling have made work more efficient for architects, landscape designers, surveyors, builders, structural engineers and brokers.

By launching a drone over the Perano vineyard in the Chianti region south of Florence, Mr. Frescobaldi can examine the progress of a 25,000-square-foot garden being built atop one of his wine cellars. The rooftop garden is intended for wine tastings, a crucial marketing strategy for the vintner’s business, Marchesi Frescobaldi. The company, which has a half-dozen vineyards that produce 11 million bottles of wine each year, reported revenue of $120 million in 2017.

Richard Shelbourne, a British landscape architect who designed the garden, said the drone images helped refine the project. “The garden design, which started in my head and was then calculated and set out on paper, could now be seen in full scale from the air, and all the lines and curves were in the right place,” he said.

The drone allowed the men to observe the work of excavators and motorized barrows, and the construction of pergolas, fountains and terra-cotta walkways. After looking at the drone footage during construction, they decided to modify an entrance to the garden.

“I asked my son to fly over a number of times, so I could imagine how it would be planted, to give it attention from a perspective that you usually do not have,” Mr. Frescobaldi said. “These modern devices, these videos — it’s progress.”

Small, swift and agile, drones have all but replaced the more costly and less nimble helicopter for tasks that involve inspections, measurements and marketing images.

Interest in drones is rising for both consumer and commercial use. Sales of drones increased 33 percent in 2017 over the prior year, according to the market research firm NPD Group.

In 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration allowed commercial drone use for a broad range of businesses, but with restrictions: Pilots must be at least 16 years old and pass a written test.

On building sites, drones are saving money and time by providing digital images, maps and other files that can be shared in a matter of minutes, said Mike Winn, the chief executive of DroneDeploy, a company founded five years ago in San Francisco that creates software for, among other uses, operating drones with mobile apps.

Drones are reducing the travel time for busy executives, Mr. Winn said. “The head office can see what’s going on, and the safety team, the costing team, the designers — all of them can contribute to the project, share data and comment on it, without actually going to the job.”

They could also improve safety. In the days before drones, Mr. Winn said, measuring the roof of a house for solar panels would require “a guy with a tape measure to climb up there,” which often produced inaccurate results and, like anything involving heights, was dangerous.

Such peril is magnified in the construction of skyscrapers, said John Murphy Jr., a contractor on the Paramount Miami Worldcenter, a 58-story condominium tower being built in downtown Miami. Before drones, Mr. Murphy said, workers seeking access to the exterior of a high-rise were “dropped over the side” in so-called swing stages, small platforms that hang from cables. Often used by window cleaners, swing stages are precarious in high winds.

“No one wants to go out there,” he said. “It’s scary.”

Falls accounted for 384 of the 991 deaths in the construction industry in 2016, according to the latest figures from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That number could be reduced over time by increasing the use of drones for quality-control inspections and similar missions.

“We’re definitely limiting the exposure to workers,” said Mr. Murphy, who on a recent afternoon was at the Paramount site to supervise a drone inspection of window glazing on the tower. The drone’s camera was looking for possible leaks, water intrusion and “other things that you can’t see from the interior of the building.”

Earlier, the drone was used to check the quality of steel connections in a bridge, 72 feet above the ground, that links the main tower to a parking structure.

The utility of drones often begins long before the foundation is poured. They help planners decide where to place new buildings. And at the 87-room Foundry Hotel in downtown Asheville, N.C., the developer sent a drone to the precise height and location of a proposed fourth-floor balcony to help him decide how best to take advantage of the view.

“A drone really helps us to conceptualize what a development is going to be, because sometimes it’s hard to do that just from a set of plans,” said Alexandros D. Papapieris, the development manager at McCall Capital, which is converting a 1925 office building in Bristol, Va., into the 65-room Bristol Hotel, set to open this fall. “Everyone loves a good aerial. Drones allowed us to paint a picture for the investors about why this was a good idea.”

Careers are being transformed with the new technology. Pedro Domecq, a videographer in San Sebastián, Spain, bought his first drone in 2011. “It cost $6,000,” he said. “Now, they cost $1,000 and they’re much better.”

Initially, Mr. Domecq used the drone to capture aerial videos of his picturesque Basque Country surroundings and share them on social media. Now, under the banner of his company, Heliworx, Mr. Domecq spends much of his time fulfilling contracts with builders.

“It’s all much easier with a drone,” said Mr. Domecq, who has lately been producing high-definition aerial surveys for the construction conglomerate Acciona, which is building a high-speed railroad that will connect the Basque Country with Madrid.

Mr. Domecq’s drone flights are aided by photogrammetry, in which three-dimensional digital models are created from overlapping photographs of a structure, landscape or object. Some of the flights involve mapping the paths to be taken underground by the many tunnels required for the railroad in the region’s mountainous terrain.

Younger business owners see drones as a moneymaking tool. After graduating from college four years ago and starting a small video marketing company in Charleston, S.C., Matt Coda found himself being asked to produce industrial videos with a drone. His biggest coup was a contract for his company, Vive Media, to document the first phase of construction of a 280-acre container terminal for the South Carolina Ports Authority.

For more than a year, said Mr. Coda, 26, he provided monthly progress reports to his client, the S.J. Hamill Construction Company, in the form of video updates. He flew the drone along the same two routes on the development site to show Hamill Construction the entire property as the project progressed.

In May, Mr. Coda began working on the building site of the South Carolina Aeronautical Training Center, an $80-million, 224,000-square-foot structure at Trident Technical College in North Charleston.

“It’s fascinating to see a project evolve,” said Mr. Coda, a certified drone operator. “But I’m grateful to be the one flying the drone and not doing the actual construction.”

Mining Global catches up with Ariel Avitan Chief Commercial Officer at Percepto to discuss how the company’s drone technology is transforming the mining landscape…

So, Ariel, how is mining benefitting from automated drone use?

Mining was one of the first real relevant applications for drones, especially when you look at pile inspection. Having the ability to look at your facility from above gives you a lot of access to data that I believe is not something that you can get on a needs basis. A lot of companies are service-based, meaning someone will use the drone in starting to understand the scale of the mining facility, and then using third party analysis tools to provide data like pile inspection and 3D modelling and so on.

Mining as an industry needs drone use for increased data. The question becomes a case of where it finds the gap because of the variety of mine types that creates different use cases. But not everything can be drone as a service. It requires different kinds of systems.

What kind of systems are they?

For example, when you use drones for mining, sometimes you want to send a drone into a specific pit hole for 3D mapping or to send a drone for sensors on gas control. There are different drones required for different purposes. The second thing is how you connect the drone as another sensor or another flying data collection system to the rest of the mining data collection. The industry is moving toward fully autonomous mining facilities or mining facilities that collect constant data and so you have to be agile to that.

Another example is safety. At Percepto, we provide drones that are hands free from the pilot and connected to the systems that are already in the mine field to enable the drone to react and be a responsive tool. Gas sensors, smoke sensors for a fire, even security sensors or cameras, you’d send the drone to get an immediate visual confirmation of what's going on there, so the human factor can react much better to these events.

But when it's not in security and safety, it constantly collects data from the different points of interest within the mining field. That enables you, when you have a system there readily available 24/7, it enables you to have constant ore inspection, heavy utility or heavy machinery inspection, and so on. You will profit because the system is already there.

How has the emergence of drones changed the technology conversation in mining?

The conversation is shifting. The larger companies of the world are very similar in their safety approach – safety is number one. Everybody has their own challenges, but a lot of these challenges can be visually inspected. I'll give you an example. We have a mining company that is looking for us to create a visual application that will assist if someone doesn't have a helmet. We can in real time detect and let the client or the operator know that there's someone without a helmet, or if you have X amount of people in a specific location. We can use different kinds of algorithms to identify the number of people that have gone missing, for example.

There are specific applications that we can develop and deploy that increases the safety of facilities and that's a core capability.

Is the mining industry slower to adopt technology than other industries?           

With drones, industries began to look for took a tool that is better than a camera. I'll give you an example. One of the things that made us move from an application-based company to a platform is the fact that we talked to people from Siemens and they told us, ‘look, today drones are used basically to replace. It's a tool for people to replace ropes’ because they use drones for wind turbine inspection. They basically replace the rope with a drone. Apply that to mining. They replaced walking around the stockpile with using a drone as a tool to do the assessment, but it can be much more than that. It can be an integral part of the whole operation of the system when it's ongoing. That's the difference here, I think, in the mindset and I think that difference starts to trickle down in specific companies.

There’s an understanding now that we're not only looking at drones as just another component, another wrench in your tool box, but as full systems that can provide value to the security team, to the safety team, to the inspection team, to the operations team, because it can do different kinds of ongoing missions.

How does Percepto turn data into real value?  

There are a lot of companies that know how to take different kinds of videos and provide the analytics for pile estimation or change detection. I think that the main gap in the world, in our specific world, is the data collection and the ability for the drone to fly very accurately and collect the right data so that the machine learning applications can process and provide the value.

We focus on real-time machine vision to get that accurate data. We want to be collecting the data in big facilities on an ongoing basis so that our offering or indeed a third-party solution can analyse the data and provide the value from the data.

Does automation and drone use remove the need for the physical human element?         

Ultimately, drones cannot fix anything. They're just a good system for alerting on different kinds of risk and situations that need to be alerted of. They're much faster. They're much more accurate, and they provide data in real time for roles in decision making. If there's a gas leak, somebody needs to get there and adjust the gas leak, so it doesn't replace people. It just provides a better way of addressing different issues within the site that increases the productivity of the site and the facility.

What will the future of drone use in mining look like?

I think that mining companies are starting where it's obvious that there's value for drone use. They're waiting for specific technology and applications that will help them do more.

But as we develop new software applications that can build on top off the platform and provide that real visual data and analysis, it will increase the efficiency of these companies which, we all know, is a main goal for them because of the reduction in income.

Slowly, but surely, we'll see more and more use of these systems offer more routine applications that we have today.

Agriculture is one area where drones are making a big impact in Queensland, whether it is detecting and killing weeds, measuring disease outbreaks or supporting crop-breeding trials.

The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) will be highlighting its innovative use of drones through a display at the World Of Drones Congress in Brisbane.

Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner highlighted the value of drones particularly to precision agriculture.

“More and more producers are seeing the benefits of drones as part of their farming operations,” he said.

“Applied research is focusing on expanding the use of drones in assessing crop health, breeding lines, pasture growth and horticulture yields, releasing predator mites over certain crops, disease detection, targeting weeds and monitoring water levels in dams and bores in remote areas.

“Many of these activities could previously take days of labour-intensive effort, but with drones can now be accomplished in as little as a few minutes.

“For example, the Queensland Government has developed a drone that can fly over sugar cane fields, identify weeds and take them out with a targeted shot of herbicide. This saves time, money and helps to reduce herbicide run off into local waterways.

“One of the many information sessions at the Congress will be dedicated to agriculture, environment and conservation, so visitors can learn more about this important focus of drone usage.”

Mr Furner said it was timely that the Congress was being held in Queensland, which was the first state to develop a drone strategy.

“Released in June this year, the Strategy will help to build local industry capability in drone research, design and development which in turn will attract investment and create jobs,” he said.

“With estimations that the global drone industry will be worth US$100 billion by 2020, it is an important field for Queensland to be involved in.

“Our strategy aims to unlock the potential use of drones in all industries, not just agriculture.

“Already we’ve seen the Department of Defence choose Queensland as the home for its new $50 million Defence Cooperative Research Centre to develop drone and robotics technologies for the Army, Navy and Air Force.”

The Palaszczuk Government is committed to embracing drone technologies and provides ongoing support to the Congress.

Now in its second year, the World of Drones Congress brings together industry and government leaders with drone experts and enthusiasts to display and explore the current and future potential of the drone sector.

Many species interact in the wild but most of these interactions are as predator and prey but this amazing footage captured in the middle of the oceans reveal the playful side to interspecies interaction.

This incredible drone footage shows two humpback whales swimming playfully in the water alongside an adult dolphin and her baby.

The pair can be seen breaching and gliding around the dolphins. Whales and dolphins have always had a friendly relationship as these two species are often caught interacting with each other in a playful manner.

Meanwhile, off the coast of Western Australia, a whale appears to play with a pod of dolphins.

Each year, southern right whales travel thousands of kilometres from the chilly waters of Antarctic to the warm Australian coast but it seems that this one has a brief stop en route to have some fun with the pod of friendly dolphins

These heartwarming interactions are not common and quite rare to be caught on camera but they are certainly not impossible

Whether you’re a newbie or an experienced drone racer, eventually you might want to take your video editing skills to the next level. Even though sometimes all you need is to cut out a fragment of your footage and add music, other times – just a few extra steps will make your video look cinematic.

For this post, we’ve partnered with VSDC, free video editing software for Windows, to demonstrate 7 ways to produce eye-catching effects including such famous ones as the “video inside text” mask and the vertigo effect. The best part about them, you won’t need much time, experience, or expensive software.

If you’re already using some advanced-level video editor, you should be able to replicate all the recommendations below. But if you’re currently looking for one, and you’re on PC, VSDC might be a smart choice not only because it’s free and capable but also because it barely uses your system resources and runs well even on low-end computers.

Idea #1. Widescreen ratio (cinematic effect)

Thanks to Hollywood, we’re so used to associate high-quality cinematography with the “black bars” on the top and the bottom of our screens, some movie makers started to imitate them just to create this illusion of a video shot with a widescreen ratio. Truth be told, however, most videos instantly start looking cinematic when letterboxed.

To achieve this effect, you don’t have to go to the ratio settings and calculate the right proportions to resize the footage. All you need to do is create a rectangle object, fill it with black, duplicate and place at the top and the bottom of your video as shown on the GIF.

Idea #2. Video inside text (Text mask)

Text mask is probably the best way to start a scene. It’s widely used by professional video editors, and you’ve surely noticed this effect hundreds of times in travel videos and even on TV. Technically, a text mask is just a video seen through letters, but to a newbie, it looks more complicated than it really is. VSDC Video Editor allows you to achieve it in less than a minute.
Once you’ve started a project, add a text object to a timeline and enlarge it accordingly. Click twice on it to open a new tab and add the video you want to play on the background. Stretch the video to cover the entire text and choose the “Source in” blending mode from the left-side menu on the timeline.

Idea #3. Contour text overlay

There is another often-overlooked technique you may want to consider for your project when adding comments or titles. Contoured text looks less distracting than a text mask, yet, much more authentic and stylish than a regular solid title. If your goal is to keep maximum attention on the image, it might be a better choice.

To create a contoured half-transparent title, add a text object and make adjustments using the built-in text editor on the top toolbar. You can choose the color of the text, its contour, and the level of opacity based on the desired look.

Idea #4. Split screen

Split screen is often used in production for showing the same object shot from different angles or creating the “before and after” effect. The easiest way to achieve it would be by placing two videos side by side. If you want to create a mosaic-looking video compiled of multiple clips, splitting the screen into more parts will do the trick.

You may want to try it for simultaneously showing various places you flew with your drone or, for example, comparing the same spot shot during the golden hour and the blue hour.
To achieve the split-screen effect in VSDC, simply add your video files to the timeline, resize them using drag’n’drop motion and place on the scene accordingly.

Idea #5. Motion Blur

You probably have heard of this one before, because applying Motion Blur is among the most recommended tips for drone video shooters. The reason being is that motion blur makes videos look more natural and filmic, meanwhile, its absence may create a “strobing effect” as Charles Yeager puts it in his tutorial on Envato.

When you fly at a comparably high speed close to the water, trees, or other uneven surfaces – especially if you’re using a more affordable drone model – the footage may lack the natural blur and look distracting. So, it’s a good practice for you to add fake motion blur in post-production. In VSDC, just go to the Video Effects dropdown menu at the top of the program, scroll to Filters and choose Motion Blur. Then go to the Properties menu on the right side of the dashboard and adjust the transparency level to have the image less blurry until you achieve the desired image.

Idea #6. Dolly zoom (Vertigo effect)

This is another mesmerizing effect that might look complicated when you see it in a video, but actually takes just a few seconds to replicate and doesn’t require any special skills. First introduced by Alfred Hitchcock, Dolly zoom has been used in many movies including Scarface and Lord of the Rings. Today, it’s one of the favorite tricks of professional drone videographers.

If you’d like to see more examples of Dolly zoom used in cinematography and drone videos, you can check this tutorial by Tom Tech’s Time.

To get this illusion, all you need is to shoot a video with a drone flying backwards (instead of towards) and then apply the Zoom in transformational effect. In order to avoid quality loss, it’s highly recommended to shoot in 4K. Once you’re done with editing, consider using H.265/HEVC codec for exporting because it keeps the highest video quality at the minimum file size. Here you’ll find a detailed tutorial on zooming a particular part of the video using VSDC.

Idea #7. Color gradient

Color grading is the most time-consuming trick on the list, but it is also the most impactful one. Not only is it capable of enhancing the footage, but it does make your movie look outstanding. The color grading feature gives you the power to change the mood of the video and create a completely different picture. So, even though it takes some effort and patience to figure out how it is applied, it’s definitely worth trying because the results are always impressive.
Unlike most professional-level video editing software (think Adobe Premiere), VSDC is slightly unconventional when it comes to color correction. Instead of working with the color wheels, you’ll need to add an additional color graded layer to the timeline and blend it with the video. There is a detailed video guide available here.

Afterword

Aerial videos allow us for seeing the world from a birds-view perspective – and this is why most of them look stunning even in their original versions. Racers, however, resort to post-production techniques more often today willing to make their videos stand out and add a personal approach to storytelling. And since we’ve just established that you don’t have to be a professional shooter to produce amazing content, go ahead and try these video editing tricks on your drone footage to see how quickly it can be turned into a masterpiece.

Verity Studios might be the only robotics company that can say it has toured with Metallica and performed with Cirque du Soleil. Since 2014, the company has produced autonomous indoor drone shows for those groups and others, including Madison Square Garden, and Princess Cruises.

In June, the company raised $18 million in Series A funding, led by Fontinalis Partners, with participation from Airbus Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Kitty Hawk. The company said it would use the funding to expand its live events business, focusing on U.S. growth, as well as expanding into other commercial verticals.

The company’s founder, Raffaello D’Andrea, was one of the co-founders of Kiva Systems, a pioneer in the mobile robotics arena that was acquired by Amazon in 2012. Robotics Business Review spoke with D’Andrea about the funding, his vision for the company and his thoughts on the public perception of drones.

Q: Kiva Systems and Verity Studios seem like two totally different ventures – do you see any similiarities between the two companies or their technology?

D’Andrea: Although they operate in different markets, the complex engineering challenges faced by both companies are very similar.

At Kiva, our business model called for having more than 1,000 mobile robots loose in a warehouse, running 24/7. The challenge was that in 2003, when we started Kiva, the mean time between failure of mobile robots was on the order of 24 hours; clearly we could not have 1,000 robots breaking down in a warehouse in a day. At Kiva, we had to figure out how to make a large, multi-robot system super-reliable, using inexpensive components.

We had to overcome a similar challenge at Verity Studios. Our flying machines have logged more than 30,000 flights, most of them above people, in the extremely demanding live events environment. Ensuring that our autonomous drones perform reliably night after night was a key priority for us, as was safety. As a result, we have developed some extremely powerful, and cost-effective, failsafe technology.

I’m passionate about making things that no one has ever made before. These sorts of challenges come hand-in-hand with creating something new, and it’s something I find very exciting.

Q: When did you realize that autonomous drones flying together in swarms could be used for entertainment purposes? Was there an “aha!” moment that drove this realization?

D’Andrea: Well before founding Verity Studios in 2014, my co-founders and I had strategically identified indoor drone shows for live events as a fantastic first market for a high-tech company: High visibility, premiums for innovation, and very little competition.

Q: Do Verity Studios produce its own drones, or do you use off-the-shelf components? Do you have multiple designs depending on the effect that you want to achieve?

D’Andrea: Our Lucie micro-drones and all other components of the drone show system were designed, assembled, and quality controlled at Verity’s workshops in Zurich. All software is developed in-house as well.

Q: What’s the largest number of drones that you’ve used simultaneously in an event or show?

D’Andrea: Our largest swarm consists of 99 drones, and it’s touring around the world with Metallica. I would say that the number of drones isn’t as impressive as the way our drone show system is completely client operated and can tour the world with a band.

The fact our system is robust and reliable enough to enable this really speaks to its maturity. Although this is currently our largest swarm, the only limit to the number of drones we can fly in a swarm is the size of the space and the creative concept.

Q: What major technology developments have occurred — either by Verity Studios or from other research — has allowed these devices to be used in this way?

D’Andrea: Safety is of paramount concern when flying drones around and above people. In a live event setting, even more so.

For example, in 2016 we worked with Cirque du Soleil to bring drones to Broadway in the musical Paramour. Our Stage Flyer drones performed in front of large audiences and above actors for almost 400 performances. Having our client operate these large, 1kg drones above people’s heads, live on Broadway eight times a week was only possible because we had engineered the complete drone show system around safety and reliability, from the ground up.

More specifically, we developed drone failsafe technologies to ensure the safety and reliability of our drones in public performances. And this approach did not stop at the technology, but extended to all aspects of the system – from our internal procedures and processes to the training of the show’s automation operator and the theater stagehands who operated the drones, day in and day out. It’s really that bottom-up approach that allowed us to sleep soundly at night knowing that these “dancing lampshades” were flying over people in front of a 2,000-strong audience, night after night, without safety nets. In their one-year run, the drones performed more than 7,000 autonomous flights, without a single safety incident.

What’s great is that the technology underpinning that track record has much broader applicability, far beyond live events. Our drone failsafe technologies can be incorporated into drone manufacturers’ platforms to significantly increase the safety and reliability of today’s drones. The core technology is algorithm-based, and can be applied to any multicopter, including a quadcopter.

For example, when one of the motors of a quadcopter fails, the drone will spin to stabilize itself and perform a controlled landing. The Broadway drones pushed this technology even a step further, creating a quadcopter without any single point of failure. As more drones continue to populate the sky for photography, commercial uses, and industrial applications, safety is a key consideration. It will only grow in importance in the years to come, and we are working with leading drone manufacturers to bring this technology to the broader markets.

Q: What goes into convincing venues, whether indoors or outdoors, that Verity Studios’ system is safe to operate around large groups of people?

D’Andrea: This is changing rapidly, but currently we’re in a situation where drone technology has outpaced regulation in many parts of the world. This means it often comes down to the discretion of the venue. What helps is that, at 50g, our Lucie micro drones are very light. This means they are safe to fly above people, and we’ve had approval to fly in very restricted venues, like airports.

The micro drones also have a guard around them, protecting the drone and its propellers. This, along with the small size of the drones, makes them very safe. Once people see the size and weight of our drones, they can see that they are unlikely to pose a safety concern and we are allowed to fly in venues close to and above people without nets.

Q: How do performers such as musicians, actors, and acrobats feel about working with the drones? What kind of questions do they ask you?

D’Andrea: At first they are cautious and skeptical, but it is amazing to see how quickly they adjust to the reality of having objects flying near and above them. Human beings are very adaptable! I mean, take flying in commercial aircraft, for example. We take it completely for granted, but imagine taking someone from the 1800s — not that long ago, in the context of human history — and plopping them in a plane: they would think that it was magic! Most questions revolve around safety, which of course makes perfect sense, they are the ones that need to be performing with the drones.

Q: What has been your favorite event to produce so far?

D’Andrea: That’s a tough one to answer, simply because of the breadth of the events we have produced so far – airports, cruise ships, concerts, sports arenas, and so on. Having said that, I think that coming out of stealth mode at TED in 2016 was probably my favorite event.

Hearing thousands of people gasp when our micro-drones started to fly over the audience, knowing that we were making history doing something that had never been done before, and the standing ovation at the end of the performance, is an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

Q: How would you describe the public’s comfort level with drones? Because they can be used in different applications, including surveillance and/or by the military, is there any distrust from people? Are people still concerned about safety?

D’Andrea: I have personally found it interesting to see how our reaction to the word “drone” has changed in just the last few years. When I started research in this area many years ago, I would never use the word drone, I used the word “flying machine.” The reason was that the word “drone” had strong military and aggressive connotations. This has definitely changed, and perhaps our work has contributed to this change. People no longer associate drones with military operations, but rather as mechanical wonders that allow us to overcome gravity.

But of course, commercial and consumer drone manufacturers have a big responsibility to ensure the public perception of drone technology continues to be increasingly positive. One big thing they can do is to continue working on the safety and reliability of their drones so they don’t pose a risk to people.

Q: You’ve just raised $18 million in funding – what plans do you have for the money? How big can this market/industry evolve? What’s your ultimate goal with Verity Studios?

D’Andrea: We plan to further expand into the live events market by developing new event technologies and improving existing ones. We currently hold a unique position in the live events market because we are the only company with the capability of doing indoor drone shows reliably and safely. If others in the market catch up, we may have to compete with other players for indoor drone shows.

Our work in live events has also been a great testing ground for our technology and we are exploring other commercial and creative applications of our technology. After all, if our drones can tour the world with Metallica and perform reliably night after night, they can cope with most environments.

Q: What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs in either the robotics and/or autonomous vehicle space?

D’Andrea: First and foremost, have a world-class team. Verity has talented electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, systems and control engineers, software engineers, computer scientists, and industrial designers on the team; all are needed to build robust, reliable, and high-performance robots.

In this post, we’ll discuss the equipment you’ll need in the field, as well as business operations fundamentals like staffing, financial management, and customer experience.

Equipment and Tools

The following list includes the basic equipment and tools you’ll need to operate and maintain your drones.

1. Mobile Hotspot

A hotspot allows you to share your mobile network connection with other devices (i.e. a laptop) to access the internet. You’ll need a hotspot to access data on your laptop when Wi-Fi isn’t available.

2. Inverter Generator

An inverter generator will come in handy if you’re ever in an area where the utility power is unreliable. A backup generator will prepare you for any unexpected electrical emergencies.

3. Duplicate Onsite Hardware

“When it comes to hardware, two is one and one is none” according to PrecisionHawk’s Director of Flight Operations, Matt Tompkins. Bring backup drones, sensors, and batteries to avoid experiencing equipment failure during a job.

4. First Aid Kit

In the event of a minor workplace injury or ailment, have a first aid kit available to quickly respond to medical needs.

5. External SD Reader

You will need an external SD reader to store data if your laptop doesn’t come with one.  

6. Aircraft Maintenance & Repair Tools

Have the following tools readily available for hardware repairs:

Flat-blade Screwdriver

Phillips Head Screwdriver

Hex Key and Allen Wrenches

Alcohol Wipes

Wire Cutter Snips

Electrical Tape

Hiring and Staff

As a business owner, it can be difficult deciding when you need to hire additional employees. If you’re just getting started, we recommend taking time to first understand your business and the industries you serve before hiring additional employees. However, as your business and client base grows, hiring employees may be necessary to generate additional income. Expanding your staff might be the right choice if your business is experiencing some of the following operational issues:

You’re turning down business because you don’t have enough time to respond to customer requests.

You’re delivering subpar customer service because you’re overextended.

You want to expand into a new service line but you don’t have the time or skillset to do it on your own.

If you need more guidance on hiring and staffing, this article by Entrepreneur magazine walks you through how to decide when it is the right time to hire employees.

Financial Management & Record Keeping

To manage your finances and maintain accurate record keeping, we recommend using accounting software like QuickBooks or FreshBooks. You can link these applications to your bank account and credit cards, to track expenses, automate invoices, and generate reports.

Understanding Your Costs

To effectively manage your business, you need to understand how to identify and categorize your expenses. Expenses fall into two general categories: fixed cost and variable cost.

1. Fixed Costs

These are costs that are not affected by sales volume. These costs are consistent and must be paid regardless of your business’ profitability. Examples include rent, insurance, utilities, and loan payments. Finding ways to manage and reduce your fixed costs will increase your business’ profitability.

2. Variable Costs

These are costs that increase, or decrease, as sales volume changes. Examples of variable costs are supplies, labor, and sales commissions. It is important to understand your variable costs as it will affect how you price your services to ensure your sales are profitable.

Managing the Customer Experience

Providing an excellent customer experience is essential for the success of any business. You want to make every interaction with your business, from phone calls to website visits, a pleasant and worthwhile experience. Here are four ways to improve the customer experience:

1. Know Your Products and Services

Make yourself the expert on your products and services. Customers are coming to you to resolve their business issues and identify solutions. Be prepared to answer common questions and share information that adds value.

2. Engage In Active Listening

Active listening is the foundation of excellent customer service. Customers want to feel heard and understood. Pay attention to both verbal and non-verbal communication to ensure your delivering satisfactory solutions.

3. Be Responsive

Respond quickly to your customers. You never want to lose business because you responded too slowly to a customer who was trying to purchase a solution or find out more about your offerings.

4. Ask for Feedback and Implement Change

Find out what your customers think about your business by getting their feedback. While surveys are commonly used to gather customer feedback, you can add a personal touch by reaching out to clients directly for first-hand feedback. Once you receive feedback, put the data to work by identifying areas for improvement and making strategic changes to your business.

The Hunter Region in New South Wales, Australia is home to some of the world’s most famous wines and viticulture. The continent is no stranger to the benefits of modern drone technology, and, in addition to utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles to spot shark activity near surfers, has turned toward this practical aerial tool for agricultural purposes and infrastructure inspection. The Hunter Region’s Lake Macquarie City Council recently began aerially spraying weeds on coastal cliffs, surveying land and inspecting railways, according to The Herald

Dr. Alice Howe, the Council’s planning and sustainability manager, is convinced that drones serve as one of the most convenient methods of reaching difficult areas, completing tasks too dangerous to manually attend, and highly accurate for several agricultural applications. Specifically, tending to the rapid encroachment of a South African weed on the cliffs at Swansea Heads and Caves Beach, has proven remarkably simple with herbicide-spraying UAVs.

Dr. Howe claimed that by flying at low altitudes, at speeds below 13 mph, and using the drones’ downward air pressure resulting from their rotors, the aerial method “ensures extremely accurate application of the herbicide” on priority targets.“ These drones can provide precise, safe and effective treatment of Bitou bush, which is strangling out native species in the inaccessible coastal cliff areas we’re targeting,” said Dr. Howe.

We’ve covered effective agricultural drone use before, and have seen how significantly it has affected business owners in the industry. From South Africa to New Jersey, ranchers and farmers are increasingly waking up to the notion that affordable aerial tools can be a logical, cost-effective addition to the agricultural business model. 

“Aerial spraying is faster than spraying by hand and can control more than 95 percent of Bitou bush in targeted areas,” said Dr. Howe. “The precision means minimal impact on native plant species and a higher probability of eliminating the problem on our first go.”

For the Hunter Region and the city of Lake Macquarie, Dr. Howe expects the nascent drone program, of sorts, to experience a thorough expansion in the near future. “Anything from bridge and tree inspections to using underwater drones to inspect wharves and jetties” would define a reasonable use case for Dr. Howe. 

With telecom giant Nokia using the continent as a test site for its drone management system, and the University of Adelaide undergoing environmental research projects with drones at their center, Dr. Howe’s considerations are not only feasible, but extremely likely to result in action. Even Alphabet Inc.’s Project Wing has been testing aerial food delivery nearby, which is arguably a less important initiative than protecting the regional environment from topiary-infecting weeds.

Chief operating officer of Airsight Australia, Ashley Cox, is focused on the aerial inspection of local railways and medical supply deliveries via drone. “All of these things are very, very possible,” said Cox. “The advancement of that over time is going to be phenomenal and it’s way more important we work on that stuff than pizza delivery.”

“The changes that we’re seeing in drones and the level of investment companies are making in developing the technology for civilian use is, I wouldn’t say rivaling military expenditure, but it’s right up there,” he said. 

Regarding Airsight Australia’s railroad inspections, it’s proven to not only result in accurate data, but a way to maintain operations as these inspections are taking place. “We can put a drone into that space; there’s no risk to humans, it’s a very low cost piece of equipment and we can access that without shutting down the train line,” said Cox. This is a similar scenario to Pilsner Urquell’s recent drone implementation in taking care of a mandatory ceiling inspection without shutting a profitable brewery down for a month.

Ultimately, Australia is undergoing a boom in unmanned aerial systems being researched, developed, and commercially tested. There are unmanned traffic management systems being tested, drone deliveries occurring in certain suburbs, the above-mentioned railway inspections co-existing with routine operations on the ground, and the aerial protection of local plant species underway. All in all, this is just another slice of legislative and commercial life that specifically pinpoints how and why drones are becoming invaluable to our local environments. 

Any real estate professional knows that “curb appeal” and “location, location, location” have long been twin pillars of selling a property. Today’s technologies, combined with the expectations of a new generation of buyers, are raising the bar on how to present a listing in the best possible light.

If a home already has curb appeal and prime location, savvy real estate professionals are not just focusing on a home’s interior — they’re also raising their eyes to the sky. Whether it’s an expansive waterfront home, a grand mountaintop estate or a single-family home near a quaint downtown, dronography is the listing agent's new essential tool for marketing any property consumers would want to rent (apartments), lease (vacation homes) or buy (residential or commercial properties).

The sky is the limit since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ushered in a new drone era in 2016, allowing for relaxed regulations on commercial aerial drone use. Now, there’s little barrier to entry for real estate professionals raising the bar on listing videos or photography.

Drones, or remote-controlled unmanned aircraft vehicles, offer a highly cost-effective way to elevate your marketing efforts. Aerial video and photography capture stunning, bird’s-eye views of a property and also convey a lifestyle.

For real estate professionals going the extra mile to appeal to sophisticated tastes, drones help buyers visualize their lives in that community. They can imagine stepping out from their backyard to their canoe launch or the ease in stopping in the clubhouse, trekking to the beach or commuting to work or the nearby train station.

These unique perspectives drive the emotional connection that moves and motivates buyers to act. As clients increasingly ask about using drones for their listings, real estate pros should be ready with these drone dos and don’ts.

1. Get acquainted with the roof and gutters. Most of us pay no attention to them until problems occur. Sellers should know beforehand that the roof is in great shape and the gutters are free of leaves and debris. Buyers will be deterred if your drone video reveals missing shingles or saplings growing in the gutter.

2. Clear the clutter. Just as you’d declutter a home’s interior, clear the exterior of kids’ toys, bicycles, hoses or trash bins. The rule about clutter applies whether inside or out: A property appears more spacious when it’s clutter-free.

3. Avoid outdoor maintenance work on the day of the drone appointment. Get the landscaping and the pool cleaning done ahead of time and be sure all equipment is out of sight. And be sure your drone appointment doesn’t coincide with trash pick-up day.

4. Alert the neighbors in advance. Drones have an unmistakable hum, and they are not that common in most neighborhoods. Sellers should avoid unwanted surprises by telling the neighbors the day and time the dronographer is due to arrive. The entire video shoot should take less than 30 minutes, so emphasize to clients and their neighbors that it’s a short process.

5. Notify parents of young children, too. If the neighborhood kids regularly play outside, Mom and Dad may choose to keep them inside or take them out for a ride; many parents will object to their children’s images appearing in the drone video posted on a website.

6. Cloudy days are fine days for capturing aerial images and video, since a cloudy sky eliminates the harsh shadows projected on a landscape. Still, many sellers want sunshine in their drone videos and photography. Any customer-focused photography company should have the flexibility to happily reschedule the drone appointment when requested.

With these best practices in mind, you can elevate each and every property listing with dronography.