How MassDOT Aeronautics Made High-Resolution Drone Imagery Easy to Find, Trust, and Use

What do monitoring airports, surveying highways, and counting seagulls have in common? All of them are supported by drone imagery collected by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) Aeronautics Division.

Across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, MassDOT Aeronautics coordinates and deploys hundreds of drone flights each year. The imagery captured during these flights supports MassDOT as well as a network of state and federal partners, like the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), and the US Coast Guard. High-resolution imagery informs inspections and analysis of everything from rail lines and bridges to vegetation and wildlife populations.

Dr. Sinan Abood took over as chief of data and analytics for MassDOT Aeronautics in 2023. At the time, the division had an expanding flight volume and a burgeoning stream of high‑resolution imagery. Yet the data was fragmented, living in disconnected systems with inconsistent governance policies, making it hard to access and use. As a result, work was duplicated, large datasets had to be delivered via hard drives or multiple cloud storage platforms, and quality suffered. Routine requests often required extended turnaround times relying on manual searches by Dr. Abood or members of his team.

To address these challenges, they tested many approaches and tools, seeking a solution that would improve efficiency, precision, and accessibility for both MassDOT and its partners. Geographic information system (GIS) technology provided the capabilities and scalability their complex imagery program required.

Using ArcGIS, an enterprise geospatial platform, Dr. Abood and his team developed a sophisticated solution that transformed how high-resolution imagery data is stored, governed, processed, and shared at MassDOT: the Aeronautics Data Hub. In creating the hub, Dr. Abood’s goal was straightforward but ambitious. He wanted a unified and accessible ecosystem for every MassDOT Aeronautics drone‑generated product: orthomosaics, point clouds, 3D meshes, and more.

“Our department’s main objective is to create analysis-ready data,” said Dr. Abood. “And to ensure it’s easily accessible and available. Especially for engineers, managers, leaders, GIS managers and developers, and non-GIS people.”

After each drone mission, imagery is uploaded and processed using the reality mapping capabilities in ArcGIS to create accurate 2D and 3D photorealistic outputs. Based on project needs, one of three products is chosen:

• ArcGIS Reality for ArcGIS Pro for large area drone mapping in ArcGIS Pro, 3D meshes, and digital twins
• Site Scan for ArcGIS for faster turnaround and pre-assessment in the cloud
• ArcGIS Drone2Map for specialized thermal work

Once processed, final data products are published to the internal Aeronautics Data Hub (built on ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, and ArcGIS Image Server). Metadata is then updated, cataloged, and shared through ArcGIS Hub—a cloud-based collaboration platform. ArcGIS Hub enables organizations to create and publish unlimited low- or no-code websites for securely sharing content across teams and with stakeholders.

From there, authorized users can log in, search, and view all 2D and 3D products in one centralized location. Self-service access has empowered MassDOT and its partner agencies while freeing Dr. Abood’s team from a steady stream of one‑off data requests. Responding to individual queries impeded their primary focus: planning, collecting, and processing data.

“We’re saving lots of time and lots of money by using the current tools,” said Dr. Abood.

The hub also established a system of record for the entire MassDOT Aeronautics uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) collection catalog, enabling datasets to be revisited at later dates for comparison, baseline project status checks, and planning.

Governance is more than just rules; it is a framework for ensuring that the entire imagery ecosystem delivers enterprise-wide value. Dr. Abood has been fastidious in his implementation of consistent governance policies and metadata standards in developing the Aeronautics Data Hub.

Drone operations now adhere to rigorous data collection quality standards, such as those set by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). These standards are essential for producing accurate, measurement‑ready data used in projects like highway renovations and bridge inspections.

Additionally, each imagery dataset follows a consistent naming convention: location, year, month, and date of the mission. They also include a summary describing why the data was collected, along with three or four tags to further refine searchability.

“If you don’t have good metadata, you cannot find anything,” Dr. Abood said. For example, common tags include the stakeholder, the product type, and the district in which the flight occurred. Automated quality checks flag missing thumbnails, incomplete summaries, or absent tags before data products are published to the Aeronautics Data Hub.

As the department has evolved, Dr. Abood has developed various metadata formats for the different divisions they serve. “We have a format for highway, we have a format for MBTA, we have a format for aviation and airports, and so on.”

Esri’s data management resources and system guidance have been invaluable for Dr. Abood and his team. He said that when Esri releases new recommendations—such as improved practices for cataloging, metadata completeness, or image‑server configuration—he incorporates those updates into the Aeronautics Data Hub, ensuring their governance processes stay aligned with industry standards.

Today, MassDOT Aeronautics maintains a unified, living system of record that spans every drone mission since 2021. For the first time, its entire drone program is managed and monitored end to end.

“We monitor how many drones we fly, who flew, where they flew, what they collected, and so on,” said Dr. Abood. “Before, we didn’t have that capability.” With 5 full‑time pilots, 2 part‑time pilots, and roughly 30 more pilots in MassDOT’s distributed program, centralized tracking has proven essential for organizing such a large and diverse portfolio of work. The Aeronautics Data Hub ensures every dataset is easy to find and gets maximum traction.

“Accessibility is the most important thing,” said Dr. Abood of the hub’s intuitive design and simple navigation. “You need to make it as easy as possible. People are busy. Some of them spend 90 percent of their time in the field.”

Authorized MassDOT users can log in, view datasets, run analyses, build dashboards, or incorporate maps into presentations—with no specialized desktop software required. Visual tools help non‑GIS users understand imagery coverage areas. Explanatory pages break down complex products and concepts, like true orthos, 3D meshes, point clouds, and DSM/DTM models.

“We want as many people as possible to use our data and integrate it into their workflows so they can grow and we can grow with them,” said Dr. Abood.

Maintenance crews can consult up‑to‑date orthomosaics to prioritize repairs on bridges, roadways, and runways. Emergency response teams can rely on rapid‑response imagery to assess storm or accident impacts within hours. Environmental analysts can compare historical collections to understand changes in vegetation, erosion, or habitat health. Tasks that once required days of coordination now take minutes

Even lidar, which has historically been one of the program’s biggest bottlenecks, can now be served quickly and reliably with the image server and portal. In a recent test, MassDOT Aeronautics processed and delivered 10 miles of lidar data, streaming it seamlessly through ArcGIS Online at more than 400 million points—even from an iPad connected to a 5G network. Dr. Abood wants to push the envelope of what the system can do, as well as show other teams how lidar data can be leveraged for time-consuming, complex tasks like vegetation management and volumetric analysis.

Teams and leaders across MassDOT have been delighted by the results of the new imagery ecosystem.

“It’s all positive feedback,” said Dr. Abood, who notes that budget cuts can make implementing truly impactful change a challenge. “Leadership is very happy that we could leverage existing resources to build this and make it available for all of MassDOT . . . We’re even getting requests from other DOTs to understand how they can implement the same approach.”