What Is Multispectral Drone Mapping?
A standard drone camera captures red, green, and blue — what a human sees. A multispectral sensor adds dedicated narrow bands, typically green, red, red edge (~717 nm), and near-infrared (~840 nm). Healthy vegetation reflects NIR strongly and absorbs red; stressed vegetation does the opposite. By flying a grid mission and photographing the field in all bands simultaneously, a multispectral drone records the physiological state of every square meter of crop.
Mapping software then does two jobs. First, photogrammetry: stitching hundreds or thousands of overlapping frames into a single georeferenced orthomosaic, plus a digital surface model (DSM) and a 3D sparse point cloud. Second, radiometry: combining the bands into vegetation indices — NDVI, NDRE, GNDVI, EVI, VARI — each highlighting a different aspect of crop condition. If you're unsure which index answers which question, start with our guide: what indices can you extract?
Which Drones Capture Multispectral Imagery?
DroneField supports the two multispectral platforms that dominate agricultural work: the DJI Mavic 3 Multispectral (Mavic 3M) and the DJI Phantom 4 Multispectral (P4M). Both capture green, red, red edge, and NIR alongside RGB, and both carry sunlight sensors for radiometric correction, so index values stay comparable between flights flown under different light.
For RGB-only work, DroneField also processes imagery from the DJI Mavic 3E, Phantom 4 RTK, and any DJI RGB drone — producing orthomosaics, elevation models, and the VARI index, which approximates vegetation vigor from visible light alone. That means you can start drone field mapping with the drone you already own and add a multispectral sensor when the agronomy justifies it.
RTK positioning (built into the P4M, Mavic 3M and P4 RTK) is recommended: it delivers 2–5 cm absolute accuracy, enough to align this month's stress zones with last month's map row by row.
How DroneField Processes a Multispectral Survey
Import the flight — DroneField reads the geotags and band structure automatically. One click runs the full pipeline locally: band alignment, mosaic generation, DSM, point cloud, and all five vegetation indices. The 18-second benchmark for 1,800 P4M images isn't a lab figure; it's the routine experience on an ordinary laptop, which is why operators process in the truck before leaving the field.
Because every index comes from the same processing run, comparing NDVI against NDRE costs one click — critical for closed-canopy nitrogen work where NDVI saturates. From any index layer, you classify zones, assign rates, and export a prescription: the application map documentation covers zone classification and every export format in detail.
The result plugs straight into the spraying side of the operation: boundaries and obstacles marked on the fresh orthomosaic travel with the prescription to the spray pilot's flight plan. For the broader pipeline this page is part of, see the drone mapping software overview.
Local Processing vs Cloud Multispectral Platforms
Multispectral surveys are heavy — a P4M flight is thousands of files across five bands. Cloud platforms make you upload all of it before processing starts, which in rural connectivity terms often means overnight. DroneField's local pipeline removes the upload entirely: the data never leaves your computer, results arrive in seconds, and the cost doesn't scale with hectares.
That architecture matters most exactly when multispectral matters most: in-season decisions. A fungicide or nitrogen decision made from a same-day NDRE map is worth more than the same decision made three days later. See how we compare against Pix4DFields on speed, price, and workflow — or the all features page for the complete list, from farmer portal sharing to 3D obstacle checking.