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Image Quality Checks

When you upload drone images, Drone-TM checks each one before adding it to a task. Images that fail the checks are flagged for review.

Why an Image Can Be Rejected

An image is rejected if any of the following is true:

  • It is missing camera information (EXIF).
  • It is missing GPS location, or the location is invalid.
  • The camera was not pointing down enough (gimbal angle).
  • The image is too blurry.
  • The image is too dark (almost all black, e.g. lens cap on).
  • The image is too bright (almost all white, e.g. over-exposed from the sun).
  • The sun was too low or in a bad position, causing long shadows, glare, or uneven lighting.
  • The lighting is too poor for mapping, even if the image is not fully dark or fully bright.
  • The image could not be downloaded or checked.

These lighting checks help avoid images where the ground is hard to see clearly or where shadows and glare could make the map harder to stitch.

If an image passes all the checks but its GPS location is not inside any task area, it is marked Unmatched (not rejected).

Image Statuses

Each image has one status:

Status Meaning
Assigned Passed the checks and added to a task.
Rejected Failed a quality check, or rejected by hand.
Invalid EXIF Missing camera or GPS information.
Unmatched Good image, but outside all task areas.
Duplicate The same image was already uploaded.

How to Override a Rejection

Open the Image Review page for your project. Click an image to see why it was rejected, then choose one of these actions:

  • Override rejection - Use this when a rejected image is actually fine and you want to keep it. Drone-TM will try to place it in a task using its GPS location.
    • If the image has no GPS, the override will not work.
    • If the GPS is outside every task area, the image becomes Unmatched.
  • Match to task - Use this for Unmatched images. Pick the task on the map that the image belongs to. This skips the GPS check.
  • Reject image - Use this to remove an image that was assigned but should not be used.

Doing Many Images at Once

You can select several images by drawing a box on the map:

  • Override rejection works on any rejected images you select.
  • Assign to task works only on Unmatched images. Rejected images must be overridden first before they can be assigned this way.