so ive been doing progress documentation for a mid-size commercial construction project for about 3 months now, flying weekly with my M300 and the P1. the GC originally wanted me to just use DroneDeploy because thats what their project manager had heard of, but im finding the orthomosaic quality is... fine? like its usable but when i zoom in on anything detailed ? rebar layout, concrete pour edges ? it feels a little soft compared to what i was getting out of Pix4Dmapper on a previous job.

the problem is Pix4D takes forever to process and i dont always have the time to babysit it, DroneDeploy cloud processing is just easier to hand off. but i keep second-guessing myself. is this actually a quality difference or am i just imagining it because i paid more for Pix4D. has anyone done a real side by side on the same dataset? curious what GSD youre targeting for stuff like this too because i was doing 1.2cm/px and wondering if i should push tighter

not imagining it, Pix4D does tend to give better detail in my experience especially if you spend time with the processing options ? full image scale, densest point cloud settings. DroneDeploy is basically set it and forget it which is great for clients who just want to log in and look at a map but yeah you lose some of that fine detail control. i mostly use DD for the reporting and volume calcs because the interface is just way easier to share with people who dont know what theyre looking at, but if anyone actually needs the data for engineering purposes im running Pix4D locally.

also 1.2cm/px is solid for most construction doc work, i wouldnt go coarser than that unless the site is massive and you're just doing progress overview stuff

have you tried Metashape at all? i switched from Pix4D about a year ago and honestly havent looked back, processing times are way better on the same hardware and the point cloud quality on dense veg or complex geometry seems a bit sharper to me. not saying its perfect but worth a trial if you havent. DroneDeploy cloud is conveniant but yeah for anything where the client is gonna scrutinize the output i'd want local processing with more control