Processing errors

“Processing hangs”

The map and the overlay sit still; the progress bar isn’t moving.

Fix:

1. Wait at least 5 minutes — Bundle Adjustment can be long on 500+ images.
2. In Settings → Diagnostics, watch the memory level. If memory is consistently 90%+, the machine is swapping — processing has effectively stopped due to slowdown.
3. If 30+ minutes of no movement: Quit and restart.
4. Partial results stay in the project — restarted processing can pick up where it left off (provided you don’t start a new project).

Prevention:

• Close other applications during processing.
• Don’t copy large files in the background.

”The application crashed”

Sometimes the app unexpectedly closes. Always report it to us:

1. macOS automatically creates a crash report under ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/.
2. Copy the DroneField .crash file.
3. Send via the portal support form with the project size.

Typical causes:

• Out-of-memory — too large a project (1000+ images) on 16 GB
• Corrupt JPEG — a later phase received an unexpected format
• macOS bug — a new macOS version changes Metal API behaviour

”Processing is too slow”

Typical numbers for a 100-image Mavic 3 M RTK RGB survey:

Configuration	GSD	Time
Intel i9 / 16 GB RAM / Windows	6 cm	< 40 seconds
Mac M4 / 24 GB RAM / macOS 26	5 cm	< 30 seconds

Multispectral processing adds roughly 40-60% to the runtime.

If you experience significantly slower:

1. Thermal throttling — the Mac overheats and clocks down. Put it on a stand, in a cool room, not on your lap.
2. Background tasks — Time Machine, Cleaner, Spotlight indexing. Schedule processing for quiet times.
3. Slow SSD — a USB-attached external HDD is far slower than the Mac’s internal SSD.

”Banded NDVI”

The NDVI map shows parallel bands that line up with the flight strips.

Typical causes:

1. Weather changed mid-flight (a cloud arrived halfway through) — sun on one half, shadow on the other.
2. Gimbal vibration — some images have motion blur.
3. MS time-lag — on multispectral M3M the 4 bands are captured roughly 50 ms apart; the drone moves a bit in between. DroneField compensates from v47+ onwards but extremes can still show.

Fix:

• Re-fly in stable weather
• Re-run processing in Terrain mode — better cross-band registration

”The orthomosaic isn’t in the right place / is shifted”

The orthomosaic appears on the map but not where it should be (e.g. 5–10 m off from the satellite basemap).

Typical causes:

1. No RTK — images are GPS-only, ~3–5 m error is expected.
2. Boresight issue — the drone’s gimbal calibration is off. DroneField’s BA compensates, but stubborn datasets can keep 1–2 m residual.
3. SRTM terrain — the global elevation model used as a fallback is coarse (30 m). On hilly terrain this can shift xy by 1–3 m.

Fix:

• Check the Project info panel’s RTK status — if it says “No RTK (GPS)”, the error is in the normal range.
• Fly RTK.
• Draw boundaries on your own orthomosaic, not the satellite basemap.

”Boundary export won’t open on the tractor”

You exported ISOXML, DJI Agras or XAG, but the controller doesn’t recognise it.

Possible causes:

1. Wrong ISOXML version — V3 vs V4. Try the other.
2. USB stick format — controllers expect FAT32 (max 32 GB). exFAT may fail on older equipment.
3. USB folder layout — TASKDATA is required at the root, case-sensitive on some controllers.

Fix:

• Format the stick as FAT32
• DroneField generates the right layout automatically — don’t move the files
• If the controller complains about a USB-filesystem journal, swap to a different stick

”Processing consumed the credit but didn’t start”

Very rarely, a race condition causes the credit to spend even though processing then errored.

Fix:

• Contact us via the portal support form — we’ll refund the credit manually.
• Include the project name and approximate time.

”Pixelated / blocky NIR band”

Specific to M3M: some images show a pixelated NIR (or other MS) band.

Cause: DJI driver bug — rarely, the NIR band is written as 8-bit instead of 16-bit.

Fix:

• Update DJI Pilot 2 to the latest version
• Skip the affected images — import allows this

”The orthomosaic is too big to write”

Rare, for very large projects (10 000+ images, many hectares, 3 cm/px).

DroneField supports HD orthomosaics — multi-GB GeoTIFFs. But:

• macOS: the Mac SSD free space limits you
• Cloud sync (iCloud, Dropbox): per-file size limits (typically 100 GB)

Fix:

• Split the field across multiple projects (e.g. north / south)
• Or raise the target GSD (10–15 cm/px)

“Strange vegetation-index values”

The NDVI/NDRE map shows extreme values (e.g. NDVI = −0.8 over wide areas).

Typical cause: the calibration panel shots are missing or were photographed under bad illumination.

Fix:

• Read NDVI relative values (use preset ranges), not absolute
• Re-fly with proper calibration panel photography

DroneField

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