← the log
imaging/
2026·06·24/1 min read
Orthomosaics without the cloud
Stitching survey flights locally: what ODM gets right, where it falls over, and why the GPU matters less than the overlap.
Matteson Machielse
written from the rack room
Every orthomosaic tutorial assumes you will upload forty gigabytes of survey imagery to somebody else’s computer. The whole point of the homelab is that I don’t have to.
OpenDroneMap in a container does the job if you feed it discipline: 75% front overlap, 65% side, and a flight plan that doesn’t improvise. The GPU barely matters — it’s RAM and patience.
Where it falls over: water, canola in bloom, and anything that moves. Same as the paid tools, they just apologize more politely.