What is a height server?
This server provides elevation data for Germany based on self-created elevation models from various sources. The data is very accurate in certain places, but has larger inaccuracies of up to 3 m elsewhere. The service is free for CADdy club members and WebCADdy users, but can also be used by third parties with a flat fee of 30 € per month. The data is constantly updated by an editorial system and an automatic homogenization, of course, by height models of the Flying Surveyor.
Why do elevators facilitate autonomous flight planning?
This refers to a server that sends requests from a bounding box to the server and spits out the heights required therein at the push of a button and transfers them to CAD (eg for street planning) or flight planning. Currently there are two providers:
GIS-based flight preparation
Currently on the market mission planning software has various options to prepare a mission for a variety of tasks and calculate. But it also has shortcomings when it comes to the implementation of legal requirements, different plan bases, limitations or just the aforementioned terrain data, which is needed for an accurate, perhaps borderline flight planning. This is where the strengths of geographic information systems that work with official geodata, WMS / WFS services and coordinate systems come into play.
Working with WebCADdy to determine flight area and elevation models
Probably the most suitable system for a professional flight preparation today is probably WebCADdy, the browser-based variant of the CAD / GIS CADdy, which has been established for over 35 years and probably the most widely used in surveying and construction. It runs in the browser, so it is independent of the operating system and works on the smartphone, tablet as well as on the desktop.
It supports official coordinate systems worldwide as well as WMS / WFS services. This makes it possible to access cadastral maps as well as official aerial photos, Google Maps or OpenStreetMap as the basis for planning. Likewise, almost all common CAD and GIS formats and coordinate systems are available for export. Using the drawing functions, flight area limits can be determined and recorded with centimeter precision.
The handover to the Flugsteuerungsapp via the usual formats such as kml or EsriGris.