Onboarding guide

Home page

1. Overview

This section will show you total number of missions and the current days left in your free trial.

2. Map

This section provides a geographic overview of missions, allowing you to visualize all your missions in one place. Initially, you might only have demo missions.

3. Mission

Each mission on the map is represented by a bubble. Clicking on it will take you to the Mission Details page (we'll delve into more detail about this section later).

4. Chat Support

At any point while using the website, you can utilize the support chat to ask us questions or engage in general conversation. We typically respond within a few minutes.

Missions page

This page provides a more detailed view of your missions. Here, you can search, sort, or filter through your existing missions, or start new ones.

1. Search

Search through your missions using plain text.

2. Sort

Sort missions according to their creation date.

3. Filter

Filter missions by their current status.

4. Table / Grid view

Switch between table and grid view for mission listing.

5. Mission Card

This listing corresponds to a particular mission. Clicking on the action button will navigate you to the mission details page. Initially, you may see a different tab in the mission details page depending on the current status of the mission.

6. New Mission

Start a new mission by clicking this button. It will open a modal form which is explained in the next step.

Create a new mission

1. Mission Type

Select the mission type.

1. Fly a drone - Currently not supported

2. Upload images / model - Provide us with imagery or completed 3D asset.

Fly a drone feature is currently not supported since its under construction. So you should select the Upload images / model option.

2. Name

Name of the mission. This can be anything of your choice.

3. Description

Short description for the mission. This can be anything of your choice.

4. Location

The general location of your mission. This is where it will be shown on the home page.

5. Email notifications

You can enable email notifications to receive an email once your mission has finished processing.

After filling up this you should be taken to Mission Details page, on the Upload tab.

Uploading mission footage

1. File upload section

Drag and drop your drone footage here, or click to select the files.

We have upload size limits in place to ease the load on our infrastructure. If you have a mission that exceeds our upload limits, please don't hesitate to contact us, and we'll be happy to assist you.

2. Remove All

Remove all selected files.

3. Asset / Image toggle

If you have a 3D model that is already processed then you should check this toggle and select the 3D model files in the upload section.

We currently support .glb and .gltf (compressed in .zip) files for direct model upload. If you have your models in any other format, please don't hesitate to contact us, and we'll be happy to assist you.

4. Upload files

Clicking this button will start uploading the files you selected. Once the upload is finished your model will be queued for processing.

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Do not close the tab until all the files have finished uploading and you see a confirmation as follows.

You may freely browse the site in a new tab.

Exploring a mission

Once the mission has finished processing, you can navigate to the Explore tab to begin interacting with it. There's a wide range of functionality packed into this view, so we'll take a closer look at each of them one by one.

1. Embed access

With this tab you can control what level of access the mission has in the embed mode, and copy the embed link.

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Embedding a mission allows sharing the mission with people external to your organization.

Access levels:

None - Embed mode is disabled

Viewable - anyone with the link can view the mission.

Editable - anyone with the link can view and edit the mission.

2. Tab layout

The layout of this page is designed with flexibility in mind, allowing you to resize, move, group, or focus on individual tabs to create a layout that best suits your needs.

Resizing

Move the bars between the tabs to resize the layouts.

Moving

You can grab a tab by clicking and holding on its title, then move it around to where you need it.

Focus

You can focus on a tab by clicking on the icon on the top right of each tab pane.

Example

Here's an example of a customized layout that focuses on inspection features.

3. 3D Inspector

The 3D Inspector displays the asset model in a 3D view with geospatial context. On top of that you can create various 3D annotations on top of the asset model.

Annotations

Point - Marks a single point of interest

Area - Measures an area captured by a polygon

Distance - Measures a distance captured by a line

Volume - Measure a volume captured by a polygon

Creating a 3D annotation

1. Make sure the 3D Annotations tab is visible

2. Select an annotation tool from the top of the 3D Inspectorsome text

3. Click on the asset model where you wish to place the annotationsome text

3. 1. 💡
   2. Different annotation tools behave differently. - Clicking on multiple places with Point tool will create multiple point annotations. - Clicking on multiple points with Area or Volume tool will add points to the existing polygon.- Distance tool will not allow picking more than two points.
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   4. You can press Ctrl / Cmd + Z to undo that last picked point.

4. Click Done on the toolbar. This should open form in the 3D Annotations tabsome text

5. You can add a title or notes to your annotation and click Create

4. 3D Annotations

This tab allows you to manage your 3D annotations. Any new 3D annotations you create will appear here and on the map.

Fly to annotation

Clicking the target icon (first icon from left) in the 3D annotation card will fly your camera in the 3D Inspector to that particular annotation.

Edit

Clicking the pencil icon (second icon from left) in the 3D annotation card will allow you to edit the annotation.

Visibility

Clicking the eye icon (third icon from left) in the 3D annotation card will toggle the visibility of the annotation.

Bulk Delete

You can select multiple 3D annotations by using the checkbox on the left and delete them at once.

5. 2D Inspector

The 2D Inspector enables you to explore the raw images used to process the 3D model. Additionally, you can create 2D annotations on these raw images.

Creating a 2D annotation

1. Select a 2D annotation tool from the 2D Inspector toolbarsome text

2. Identify the area where you want to draw the 2D annotationsome text
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   2. You can pan around and zoom with great depth to get a clearer view of any area of the image.Click + Drag to Pan aroundMouse wheel to Zoom in/out
   3. Here is an example of of zooming.

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   2. The quality of the image after zooming in may vary depending on the quality of the original image.

3. Shift + Click on the image to start drawing the annotationsome text
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   2. To finish drawing with the Polygon tool, simply double-click.

4. Add a label to your 2D Annotation and click Oksome text

6. 2D Annotations

This tab allows you to manage your 2D annotations. Any new 2D annotations you create will appear here and on their respective images.

7. Images

This tab displays a gallery view of the images used to process the 3D model.

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Images and 2D Inspector are synced, meaning selecting an image in the Images will update the image in 2D Inspector and vice versa.

Assets

Assets allow you to link external resources to a mission using their URLs. They provide a way to directly associate resources that are not managed by Anvil Labs but are relevant to your mission. For instance, Matterport links and documents from Google Docs or Google Sheets are common examples of such resources.

In the following examples, we'll demonstrate how you can manage your assets. We'll use a simple Google Doc as an illustration.

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Miscellaneous

Capturing footage

1. Recommended footage specifications

Resolution

Minimum: 1920 ✕ 1080 Pixels (Full HD)

Recommended: 3840 ✕ 2160 Pixels (4k) or More

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Higher resolution captures more information per image which allows our processing pipeline to produce more accurate 3D models.

Image Overlap

Minimum: 80%

Recommended: 85% or More

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Image overlap describes how much the imagery changes between two consecutive images. With a high % of overlap smaller details are easier to pick up. With a low % of overlap smaller details become hard to pick up and sometimes may even be missed.

Image Sidelap

Minimum: 70%

Recommended: 75% or More

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Image sidelap is exactly the same as image overlap with the key difference being that its considered perpendicular to the drone.

Motion Blur

Avoid images with motion blur. Motion blur defeats the purpose of image overlap since it makes it hard to discern between two consecutive image. As such, we highly recommend focused and still images.

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Images extracted from video may have a high amount of motion blur that may result in poor quality 3D model.

Drone software

• DroneLink

• DroneDeploy

Uploading to Anvil Labs

Using Dashboard

1. Open dashboard.anvil.so/missions

2. Select the mission you want to upload the footage for an click “Upload”some text

3. Drag and drop or select your image filessome text

4. Click “Upload Files” on top rightsome text

5. Wait for the upload process to finish

Using API

1. Obtain your API key from dashboard.anvil.so/settings?tab=api_accesssome text
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   2. You will need editor or admin role to obtain the API key.

2. Use the API Key to request a pre-signed URL to upload the imagesome text
   curl -X POST \  https://api.anvil.so/mission-upload/ \  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \  -H 'api-key: <YOUR_API_KEY>' \  -d '{    "mission": "<YOUR_MISSION_ID>",    "file_name": "<YOUR_IMAGE_FILE_NAME>" }'
   1. Response
   {"url": "<PRE_SIGNED_URL>", "fields": { "key": "string", "AWSAccessKeyId": "string", "policy": "string", "signature": "string" }}

3. Use the pre-signed URL obtained in the step two to upload the imagesome text
   curl -X POST \  "<PRE_SIGNED_URL_FROM_STEP_2>" \  -F 'file=@/path/to/your/image'
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   2. The image name you used to generate the pre-signed URL and the name of the actual file that you upload to the pre-signed URL must be the same.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all of your imagessome text
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   2. You can use your favorite scripting language to automate it.

5. Notify of upload completionsome text
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   2. This step will start 3D model processing so only call it after you have uploaded all of your images.
   curl -X POST \  https://api.anvil.so/mission-notify-upload-complete/ \  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \  -H 'api-key: <YOUR_API_KEY>' \  -d '{    "mission": "<YOUR_MISSION_ID>", }'

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