Your little Mavic Pro can do a lot more than just take fancy pictures and videos – newer software allows you to work with a precise 3D workflow to create a 3-dimensional textured model of anything out there, for example a building or a historic monument.

All you need is a DJI drone (for example the Mavic Pro 2), a flight control software (for example the free AeroRanger) as well as a 3-D modeling software.

The workflow for what sounds like an insurmountable task is actually quite simple: You define the flight path for your drone so that you capture as many angles as possible, with a high overlap of individual images. Then you go out and let the flight controller (for example AeroRanger, which is free) fly the drone around the actual object you would like to create a model for.

After this, import the files into a 3-D modeling software. In the video below, they used Capture Reality, which offers both a free demo version (enough to create the model but not export it) as well as different pay-per-use models for exporting your data.

In any case, watch the video below on how the entire workflow works in detail, I was surprised by what’s possible in 2019 with a few simple tools!