Processing: how long it takes, and what to do if it stalls or fails

Once you click “Upload & Process”, or start the run in step 7, SkyPLX-9 makes your map in nine stages. How long it takes depends mostly on the number of photos and the “Processing Quality”. You can close the page: the run keeps going, and you can come back to it any time.

Watching a run

1. Office › Work › Field › DSP · /office/work/field/dsp, then the folder, then the project.
2. On the mission’s card, step 7 “Make the map” reads “Making the map” with a percentage. Click “View progress”.
3. The “Processing” card shows “Step 1 of 9” to “Step 9 of 9”, what that stage does, how long the run has been going and how long jobs this size usually take. Some stages run together, so it can also say, for example, “Steps 6–7 of 9”.

“Step 7” on the mission’s card is the whole run. Inside it, SkyPLX-9 has its own nine stages, listed on the project’s card with a tick as each one is done:

1. “Read the photos”
2. “Find features”
3. “Match them across photos”
4. “Solve every camera’s position” — the longest stage on large jobs
5. “Build the dense point cloud” — long and compute-heavy
6. “Build the 3D mesh” — another long stage
7. “Texture the mesh”
8. “Make the elevation model”
9. “Make the orthomosaic”. On a big job the end of this stage can also take a while, while your map is saved.

When a map has no 3D model (you unticked it, or a large photo set is processed in sections), stages 6 and 7 say “skipped”.

Long step or stuck?

In stages 4 to 7 the numbers can sit still for hours on a big job. The “Pipeline progress” bar counts finished steps, not minutes, and “Engine task progress” is SkyPLX-9’s own number, which moves in jumps. Read the line under the stage name instead:

• “Still working —” with a count of log lines: it is working.
• “Working —”, ending “That is expected during this step.”: a quiet stretch, normal in the long steps.
• “The processing engine has not answered for …”: we are checking on it.

Going past the typical time is not bad news by itself. If SkyPLX-9 stops making progress, the run is stopped for you and the page says “Processing stopped making progress, so we stopped it.” You can also stop a run yourself: “Stop processing” under “More” (newer themes) or “Stop Processing” (Classic).

Making a big job quicker

Before you start, under “Also made unless you untick it:”, untick what you don’t need: “The 3D model (textured mesh)” is the slowest stage, then “The point cloud” and “Contour lines”. The orthomosaic and the elevation models (DSM/DTM) are always made. These boxes are in the upload review, the start form and step 7.

If a run fails

The mission’s card says “The last run did not finish — check the options and start again”, with “Fix and retry”. On the map page, the “Processing Failed” card gives the reason. “Photo Issue Detected” means fix the photos, then click “Reprocess After Fixing Photos”; otherwise click “Start Over”. If it fails again, send us a report: Report a problem.

Common questions

Does a failed run use my credits? No. Credits are held when the run starts and charged only when the map is made. When a run fails or you stop it, the hold is released: you are not charged for a map that fails.

What does “Not applied” next to PPK mean? PPK wasn’t used, so the photo positions are the drone’s own. The map is still valid; the note under it says why. If you asked for PPK and it couldn’t be completed, the map waits with “We paused your map so you can choose how to finish it” and isn’t charged meanwhile. Pick a choice there, for example “Process with onboard GNSS now”.

How long will mine take? The “Processing” card says how long jobs this size usually take, worked out from the photo count and quality. It is a guide, not a promise.