An orthomosaic is a high-resolution aerial map assembled from hundreds or thousands of overlapping photographs captured by a drone or aircraft. Unlike a single aerial photo, every pixel in an orthomosaic is corrected for camera lens distortion, terrain displacement, and perspective distortion through a process called orthorectification.
The result is a true-to-scale, georeferenced map where:
- Every pixel has a real-world coordinate (latitude, longitude, elevation)
- Measurements are accurate — distances, areas, and perimeters match ground truth
- Scale is uniform across the entire image
- The file is GIS-compatible (loads directly into ArcGIS, QGIS, AutoCAD, Google Earth)
Orthomosaics are standard deliverables from drone photogrammetry surveys, used in construction progress monitoring, agricultural analysis, mining stockpile measurement, environmental monitoring, and site planning. They are typically delivered as GeoTIFF files with 1-3 cm ground sample distance (GSD).
THE FUTURE 3D creates professional orthomosaic maps using RTK-equipped drones and industry-standard processing software (DroneDeploy, Pix4Dmapper, DJI Terra). Learn more in our orthomosaic mapping guide.