FIELD GUIDE · SINGLE-FAMILY HOME · GAUSSIAN SPLAT CAPTURE

Three Orbits,
Eight Cascades

Circle the house three times, top to bottom for the setting, then climb its faces eight times for the close-up detail. Orbits sell the neighborhood; cascades build the house.

3 ORBITS 8 CASCADES 360° COVERAGE GROUND → TOP ORBIT

The standard mission, to scale — every pyramid is a camera position. Three orbits step down the ladder, each tighter than the last; eight cascades climb the faces and corners of the house from a few feet up to just below the low orbit.

WHY WE FLY THIS

Everything on this page exists to build one thing: a Gaussian splat — a photoreal 3D model of the home and its street that a buyer can fly through on Homes.com, the same way you can fly this mission in 3D. Your photos are never the product; they're the raw material. Software compares hundreds of overlapping frames, works out where every surface sits in space, and rebuilds the scene — which means the model can only show what your camera saw.

THE GOALA home a buyer can visit, not just look at — hover over the roof, drop to the porch, look down the street. Every viewpoint you fly becomes a viewpoint they can take.

THE RULENo photo, no model. A face you skip or an angle you rush comes back as a hole or a smear in the splat. Even, overlapping coverage beats any single pretty frame.

THE PATTERNOrbits set the house in its neighborhood and catch every roof plane; cascades sweep each wall from porch height to drone height. Together they wrap the home in viewpoints from every side and every elevation.

Think scanner, not photographer. For these 15–20 minutes you're not hunting hero shots — you're feeding a reconstruction. Smooth, even, overlapping laps are the perfect capture.

THE THREE ORBITS

200FT The community Sky in the top third; house on the bottom-third line 200–300 ft out
−18 to −24° 100FT The neighborhood Same composition, ~100 ft closer — the immediate streets fill the frame 100–200 ft out
−15 to −21° 50FT The house In tight, just outside the roofline — sliver of sky, house in the bottom half cascade diameter
−22 to −28° ×8 The cascades Four faces + four corners — rise from ~3 ft up to just below the low orbit ~30 ft off the house
+10 → −35°

Fly the ladder top-down — 200, 100, 50 ft — then work the cascades around the house in one lap. Shoot on a steady interval through every movement; pause the camera while you reposition. Set the POI on the high orbit and keep it: the gimbal holds the composition for you all the way down. The reference photos on this page come from a taller version of the ladder flown over a large site — the frame checks are exactly the same.

GIMBAL ANGLES — WHY THEY CHANGE

The gimbal does two jobs: framing the story and feeding the splat. The model needs the house and its ground seen from many different angles — shallow on the high orbits, steep down low, and a continuous sweep on every cascade. Set the angle by the frame, not the number.

200 FT · −18 TO −24°Shallow. Sky fills the top of the frame, the house rides the bottom-third line while the community does the talking.

100 FT · −15 TO −21°Same composition as the high orbit — keep the POI and the gimbal follows on its own. Sky holds at the top, the nearby streets fill the middle.

50 FT · −22 TO −28°Close and modest — a sliver of sky stays at the top, the house sits in the bottom half with the roof and the sides in view.

CASCADES · +10 → −35°A sweep, not a setting. Start looking up at the roofline, finish looking down at it — ease the tilt through the whole climb to keep the house centered.

Set the angle by eye, not by the number. Tilt until the frame check reads true; the ranges are where it usually lands.

CAMERA — SET ONCE, THEN FLY

MATRICE 4

SHUTTERShutter priority (S) · 1/1000 or faster
EXPOSURE + FOCUSEV −0.7 · ISO auto · AFS focus
FILE4:3 · JPEG · landscape only
CAPTUREInterval shooting: Photo → Timed → 0.7 s — start it as each orbit or cascade begins

MAVIC

PRO MODE1/1000 or faster · f/5.6 · ISO auto · AF focus
EXPOSUREEV −0.7 (0.0 overcast) · overexposure indicator ON
FILEJPEG · 4:3 on Mavic 3, 3:2 on Mavic 4 · 6000K · landscape only
CAPTUREManual shutter every ~2 s, or the auto timer set to 2 s

Both drones. Orbit speed 50% — drop to ~25% on the low orbit. Wide lens only: no zoom, leave dewarp alone. On cascades, spot-meter the brightest part of the house so it doesn't blow out.

ORBIT 1 OF 3

200 FTThe community

DISTANCE OUT200–300 ft GIMBAL−18 to −24°

Drone frame from the high orbit — thin band of sky, whole community in view

FRAME CHECKSky in the top third; the house sits on the bottom-third line

WHAT IT CAPTURESThe extended community — tree lines, hills, main roads

The context layer. Fly the widest, highest circle of the mission and let the setting do the talking — the subject house stays small while the neighborhood, terrain and skyline anchor the model's edges.

ORBIT 2 OF 3

100 FTThe neighborhood

DISTANCE OUT100–200 ft GIMBAL−15 to −21°

Drone frame from the mid orbit — immediate streets fill the frame

FRAME CHECKSame as the high orbit — sky at the top, house on the bottom-third line

WHAT IT CAPTURESThe immediate streets, neighbors and amenities

One step down the ladder and about a hundred feet closer, with the same composition — keep the POI from the high orbit and the gimbal follows on its own. The house grows in frame while the sky band holds; this orbit places the home on its street and feeds the mid-distance detail between house and horizon.

ORBIT 3 OF 3

50 FTThe house

DISTANCE OUTjust outside the roofline GIMBAL−22 to −28°

Drone frame from the low orbit — the house large and centered, no sky

FRAME CHECKSliver of sky; the house in the bottom half — roof AND sides both visible

WHAT IT CAPTURESRoof planes, walls, yard — every side of the house

In tight, just outside the roofline, at the same diameter as the cascades — stand where a cascade will be and the orbit passes right above your head. Roof and sides in every frame; this circle is the bridge between the big orbits above and the cascades below.

CASCADES · 8 CLIMBS

×8The house, face by face

STAND-OFF~30 ft from the face CLIMB~3 ft → just below the low orbit GIMBAL+10 → −35° sweep

Cascade start: near the ground, camera level, whole house in frame

START · NEAR THE GROUND · WHOLE HOUSE IN FRAME

Cascade top: at the low-orbit height, looking steeply down at the roof

TOP · AT THE LOW ORBIT · LOOKING DOWN THE ROOF

Start low, whole house in frameStart a few feet off the ground, about 30 ft out from the face. Tilt the camera up toward the roofline so the house fills 70–80% of the frame, centered, with a little space either side.

Climb straight up, slow and steadyRise vertically while easing the gimbal downward so the house stays centered the whole way. No sideways drift — the cascade is a vertical column of viewpoints.

Top out just below the low orbit, then slide overStop just below the low-orbit height (~50 ft), now looking down the roof. Pause the camera, move to the next face or corner, and repeat — eight times around the house.

The eight climbs, evenly spaced — one at each face, one at each corner, about every 45° — worked around the house in a single lap.

WHY CASCADESOrbits see the house from above; cascades see it the way people do — walls, windows, porch — and tie the ground floor into the model

SPACINGFour faces + four corners ≈ every 45° around the house. Equal spacing matters more than exact spots

The cascades are what make the house itself solid. Each climb sweeps a face from a person's eye level to drone height, and together the eight columns wrap the home in viewpoints from every side and every elevation — the orbits above tie them all into the neighborhood.