DSM vs DTM

[Ren44]

A DSM is great for clients to view the site but if we need to prepare a detailed DTM map of just the surface (trees and buildings removed), which product or software is the best, easiest? Do you do it in house or send it out?

 

[doktorinjh]

A DSM is great for clients to view the site but if we need to prepare a detailed DTM map of just the surface (trees and buildings removed), which product or software is the best, easiest? Do you do it in house or send it out?

Some do better than others, but I wouldn't say that any are perfect. To produce a really good DTM, we manually scrub vegetation and terrain, rather than just using an automated workflow. Still waiting to update Pix4D to try their new methods, but they have improved. PhotoScan has a classification tool, but it requires quite a bit of trial and error to pick out vegetation and buildings. I haven't seen a perfect, all-in-one software solution for this, yet, so be prepared to hand it off to another program to get stellar results.