- You can connect a new app to a consumer-grade drone and capture aerial 3-D models of properties.
Real estate technophiles, rejoice!
Agents can now mix two of the hottest technologies in the industry — drones and 3-D models — into one: aerial interactive 3-D models. It’s a mouthful but also a powerful tool for bringing homes alive to your customers.
Pix4D, a drone mapping software company, is bringing 3-D drone technology to real estate.
Click the image above to use an aerial 3-D model produced using a drone and Pix4X’s app.
The company’s new app lets users connect to a consumer-grade drone and plot circular photo shoots around a property. It’s been battle-tested by agriculture and mining surveyors, Pix4D’s first customer categories.
Like ground-level 3-D models for properties, Pix4D’s aerial models let users explore a property, not just glimpse pieces of it.
You can take in a lake or grove of trees from aerial videos, but you grasp their full breadth inside a 3-D model.
Drones capture thousands of photos while following a charted aerial course, a process that takes about 20 minutes. The more routes a user sends the drone on, the more perspectives the 3-D model can serve up.
Users upload data captured by a drone to Pix4D’s server or desktop software, which then renders it into a 3-D model. Agents can embed the finished product on websites, including property details pages.
Pix4D’s app can connect with a range of camera-equipped drones, including various DJI models, the Parrot Bebop 2 and the 3DR Solo.
The technology might be most valuable to agents as a lead-generation tool.
That’s a benefit of 3-D models that Matterport users cite as often as their ability to pique the interest of out-of-town buyers and ward off “lookie-loos.”
Pix4D’s drone-control app is free. Unlimited 3-D model processing and hosting cost $49 a month or $500 a year.
“We see an increasing number of drone operators and real estate professionals using drones for photography,” said Pix4D CEO Christoph Strecha in a statement. “With our experience in photogrammetric surveying, we’ve used our knowledge to build a smooth modeling solution for the real estate industry.”
