so ive been using DroneDeploy for about a year now on a few different construction projects, mostly progress monitoring stuff, and its fine but i keep hearing people talk about Pix4D like its on another level for accuracy. our clients are starting to ask for actual survey-grade deliverables and im not sure DD is cutting it anymore or if im just not using it right.

the thing is Pix4D pricing is kind of insane if youre not doing this full time, and i am but barely. like its hard to justify when DD already does the ortho and the point cloud and the volume calculations. but then i ran into a project last month where the elevation data was just... off. not hugely but enough that the site engineer flagged it and that was an embarrassing conversation.

anyone actually switched from one to the other or used both side by side? curious if the processing difference is as big as people say or if its more about how you set up the flight.

yeah i went through exactly this about two years ago. short answer is Pix4D does give you more control over the processing parameters but that cuts both ways ? you can get better results or you can screw it up worse if you dont know what youre tweaking. DroneDeploy is more of a black box which is fine until its not.

the elevation accuracy issue you're describing is almost certainly a GCP problem before its a software problem though. how many ground control points were you using and were they well distributed across the site? ive seen DD produce sub-5cm vertical accuracy on flat sites with good GCPs and ive seen Pix4D output garbage because someone placed all their GCPs around the perimeter. the software matters less than the field work honestly, at least up to a point.

that said if your clients are asking for certified survey deliverables youre probably going to need a licensed surveyor in the loop regardless of which software you use, which is a whole separate conversation.

im kind of in the same boat so watching this thread. i tried the Pix4D trial and the interface felt really dated to me compared to DD but the outputs did seem more detailed? hard to compare without doing the same flight twice which i havent bothered to do yet. probably should at some point.