I've done a search and haven't found any recent threads regarding this.
Is it possible to georeference drone images using QGIS?
Ultimately I would like to import these photos into C3D
I look forward to trying to figure this out with everyone!
I've done a search and haven't found any recent threads regarding this.
Is it possible to georeference drone images using QGIS?
Ultimately I would like to import these photos into C3D
I look forward to trying to figure this out with everyone!
You certainly can georeference images with QGIS. See this tutorial.
From your comments about angles of the gimble I suspect you are asking if you can automatically georeference images in QGIS. That answer is no, you cannot. You can, in QGIS, create a photo-linked point at the location of image capture using built in tools or consider the ImportPhotos plugin. For adding auto-rotated images to QGIS based on EXIF data have a look at the Vertical Photo Placer plugin.
I have some algorithms for auto-georeferencing images. These tools are camera specific and quality varies with sensors and terrain. If this is what you are after you can send me a few images and I can test them.
This is a complex topic and a perfect answer is difficult. Incremental steps in order of difficulty.
The GPS locations of the camera are stored in EXIF tags, generally Exif.GPSInfo.GPSLongitude and ...GPSLatitude. These are in EPSG:4326. You can access these tags manually in photo editors, operating system file info, etc. You could also access them from QGIS using expressions (https://docs.qgis.org/latest/en/docs/user_manual/expressions/functions_list.html#exif) or PyQGIS (https://qgis.org/pyqgis/3.22/core/QgsExifTools.html#module-QgsExifTools). However, knowing the drone location of course doesn't mean you know exactly what the image is pointing at.
If you know roughly where an image is, you can georeference it using the Georeferencer, manually picking points vs an existing map or georeferenced aerial orthophoto. See https://docs.qgis.org/latest/en/docs/user_manual/working_with_raster/georeferencer.html for instructions. This does not make use of any info stored in the drone photo, of course. If the terrain is flat, it should be enough to create 4 GCPs, ideally close-ish to the corners, and use the Projective transformation type.
Some time ago, I pursued the seemingly tractable question of "Given drone lat, long, (relative) altitude; camera bearing, yaw, and focal length; what are the coordinates of a drone photo's corners?" See the question and discussion at Georeference single drone image from EXIF data. I think there is a workable approach there in the special case where terrain is flat, however there are challenges (camera focal length reporting and barrel distortion are two of them) even then. And accounting for nonflat terrain, especially within the image, would be more complicated.
It is not a good idea to georeference distorted drone images in QGIS. Why don't you use an other open source software to generate true orthophoto from those images? For example OpenDroneMap or WebODM is a perfect tool for it.