8 WebODM Options “In the Cloud”!

Restricted / tiered capability:

Virginia Tech’s Enterprise GIS (eGIS), in partnership with the Virginia Geospatial Extension Program, VirginiaView, and GeoTEd-UAS, developed a tiered instance of WebODM (in the cloud…) to support the needs of High School and 2-year college educators. The tiered system was designed to incrementally introduce students to Earth Observation through sUAS image processing by limiting and compartmentalizing image processing requests that can compromise the performance of the interface for interactive instructor-led demos and self-paced class exercises. Access to these Tiers can be granted to educators on a case by case basis.

The three tiers are summarized below:

Tier 1 – ODM Image Explorer

The ODM Image Explorer is a great place to start a student’s exploration of Earth Observation through drone image mosaics. The ODM Image Explorer provides access to the ODM interface but with some significant restrictions. This option contains pre-loaded and pre-processed image mosaics. The ODM Image Explorer was developed to let students explore the ODM interface but excludes image processing (processing tends to slow down performance). There are several projects that students can choose from to explore the 2D and 3D images/point clouds/indices. All orthophoto mosaic projects were processed using ODM’s Default processing option.

The basic concept of the ODM Image Explorer is to introduce educators (and/or students) to the basic functionalities of the WebODM, using pre-made image mosaics, and to isolate viewer capabilities from the processing side of the software, thereby maximizing performance.

Tier 2 – WebODM Orthophoto Creator

The WebODM Orthophoto Creator provides additional WebODM capabilities. The WebODM Orthophoto Creator is a fully functional instance of WebODM. The only caveat is that users are provided with a preselected set of projects. Each project option contains a limited number of images (approximately 20 images/project). The WebODM Orthophoto Creator environment aims to provide a platform to introduce students to image processing workflows (uploading images, selecting parameters, and creating image mosaics, etc.) but in a structured and limited environment that limits processing time.

Small image sets associated with Tier 2 are available from: https://tinyurl.com/DroneDataT2

Tier 3- Full-bore Instance of WebODM

If there is a need to go beyond the WebODM Orthophoto Creator option (to a full-fledged version of WebODM), then various options are available.

Option #1:  Desktop Version

There are two avenues to install a local version of WebODM on your desktop: a Manual Install and a more user-friendly WebODM Installer (more information at https://www.opendronemap.org/webodm/download/#installer). Here is a quick overview of each:

• Manual Install:  You can download and install WebODM for free through the Manual Install option!  The caveat is that this approach does require some technical inclination (there are step-by-step directions, but it is a bit complicated).
• WebODM Installer: The other approach is to pay a $64 (one-time fee). This option provides a user-friendly WebODM installation package. For me, it was worth the investment!

There is no difference between either of the above options (beyond the level of difficulty of installation). Both of the above options include lifetime updates.

Option #2: A full-fledged version of WebODM is also available on the cloud through the WEbODM Lightning Network (https://www.webodm.net/).  This option enables you to process imagery ‘on the cloud’.  It would, for example, be suitable for Chromebook users.

Option #3: If neither of the above options suits your needs, then please contact the Virginia Geospatial Extension Program [John McGee (jmcg@vt.edu)] to discuss other hosting/delivery options.