Answers from your own data

Answers from your own data

Orion is the assistant built into Omniris. Ask it a question in plain English and it answers from your own jobs, files and imagery, and from the Omniris guides. It only reads, and it only sees what you are allowed to see.

Summary

Most questions about a drone program have their answer somewhere in the data already: which jobs are waiting on you, how much storage a folder uses, how tall the trees on a site are, where a field is under stress, how hot the hottest spot on a roof was. Finding it usually means knowing which screen to open and which filter to set. Orion lets you just ask.

Orion answers from three places: your own records (jobs, files, invoices, processing runs and more), your own imagery (3D surveys, multispectral flights, thermal flights and maps), and the Omniris guides. It shows its answers as short text, tables, marked-up images and links you can click.

Where Orion lives

Orion is part of the Omniris web app and the Omniris desktop application. It is the same assistant in both, with the same conversations.

• The Orion view. The robot button in the top bar opens Orion full size: your conversations on the left, the chat on the right. A new, empty chat shows four suggested questions for your role; click one to ask it.
• The side panel. The panel on the left of the web app can show either the folder browser or a compact Orion chat. Orion is the default, and the panel remembers which one you left it on. It has a text-size slider, a button to start a new chat, and an Ask Orion box. It is handy while you browse folders or work on the map, because Orion can see what you have open.
• The desktop application. An Orion button opens the full view. On the map, the side panel is always Orion, so you can ask about the site in front of you; you can hide it and bring it back.
• Help is one click away. A ? button beside the chat opens the Orion guide in a window over the page.

The side panel and the full view share the same conversations, so you can start a question in one and carry on in the other. Orion is not part of the phone app, and read-only viewer accounts do not have it.

Questions about your data

Ask the way you would ask a colleague. Orion works out which of your records the question is about, looks them up, and answers. It reads the records that belong to your own account.

• Name folders the way you see them. Type a folder path, or just a folder's name, and Orion finds the real folder in your vault before answering. If more than one folder matches, it tells you which ones it found.
• Dates work the way you say them. "This month", "last quarter" and "next week" are worked out from today's date.
• Follow-ups work. "Yes", "show me", "the ones from last month": Orion re-reads what it just offered and does it, rather than asking you to start again.
• Short answers, more on request. A single lookup returns at most 200 rows. Orion keeps lists short and offers the rest.

What you have open

Each question you send carries a short note of what is on your screen, so "here", "this folder" and "this site" mean what you expect. Orion can be told:

• which view you are in, and the folder you are browsing in the vault;
• the site selected in Site Navigator, its customer, the flight dates switched on and the kinds of layer showing;
• the imagery drawn on the map, and the thermal anomalies marked on it;
• the most recent area you measured on a thermal map.

Every item is checked before Orion sees it: a folder, site or image is passed on only if your account may open it. The temperatures of a measured area are worked out again from the thermal map itself, not taken from the screen. Orion is also told what changed since your last question, so after you switch to another site it uses the new one and drops the old.

Map drawings are not saved, so apart from that last thermal area Orion cannot see what you sketched. If you ask about an area it was not shown, it says so and asks you to describe the place or draw it again. It does not substitute a different area.

How an answer is put together

Reading your imagery

These are what make Orion more than a search box. Each needs the right result to exist first: a finished map and 3D run, a multispectral flight, or a thermal flight. When it does not exist, Orion says so plainly instead of guessing.

Heights from a 3D survey

"How tall is the tallest thing on this site?" "How high are the trees?"

For one of your finished map and 3D runs, Orion reads two height maps: the surface model (the top of everything: ground, trees, buildings) and the terrain model (the bare ground). The difference is how tall things stand above the ground. Orion reports the tallest point, the typical height (the median) and the average, plus the heights that 75%, 95% and 99% of the area stays under. The 99% figure is a steadier guide to the tallest things than a single highest reading, which one stray measurement can push up. Height differences under about 10 inches (0.25 m) are treated as bare ground in those figures.

The tallest point is the tallest thing on the surveyed area, whatever it is. Orion does not say which object it belongs to. Volumes, areas and distances between objects are not something Orion measures; it lists the right results as links and points you to the 3D viewer and the measuring tools.

Crop condition on multispectral flights

"Show me the stressed areas." "Where is there standing water?" "Bare patches." "True stress, not ripening."

Orion makes marked images of the field for each flight: a field view with the matching areas outlined, and a heatmap of the measurement it used. It says how much of the field is affected, in acres (or square feet for small areas) with hectares in parentheses, and where: the largest areas are numbered on the image and described by position, such as "the northwest corner". Up to five areas are numbered; if there are more, Orion says so.

It chooses the measurement (a vegetation index: a number worked out from the light the crop reflects) from your wording:

Eighteen indices are available in all, and Orion uses only those your flight's camera bands can support. Worth knowing:

• Fixed or relative cut-off. When the flight is calibrated and published research gives a cut-off for that index, Orion uses it. Otherwise it marks the weakest (or strongest) quarter of that field. Say "worst 10%" to choose the size yourself.
• Crop only, where it matters. Stress, nitrogen and moisture questions look only at plants; water, bare soil and green-cover questions look at the whole field.
• Combined conditions. Up to two extra conditions can be added, such as "dry and stressed" or "stressed but not ripening".
• Every flight date. With no date given, Orion works from the newest flight back, three dates at a time, and tells you how many remain. Say "continue" for more, or name a date. It compares dates when several are shown.

Thermal flights

"How hot is it?" "What's the hottest spot?" "Any thermal anomalies?" "Is this field short of water?"

Orion reads only the checked temperature map Omniris builds from a thermal flight. From the newest flight, or the date you name, it gives:

• Temperatures: lowest, average, highest and the spread, in °F with °C in parentheses, where the hottest point is, and a colored thermal map you can click to enlarge.
• Hot spots: the top ten from the most recent hot-spot search on that flight, with peak temperature, temperature rise and size, when a search has been run.
• Severity: when it grades a temperature rise it uses the severity bands Omniris applies to thermal inspections, says what the rise was compared with (a similar component, or the surrounding air), and reminds you the bands are industry practice, not a certified standard.
• Crop water stress: for drought questions it uses the crop water stress index (CWSI: a measure of how thirsty a crop is, worked out from the temperature of its leaves). It answers from a saved water-stress map when one exists, and names the crop and method used. If not, it works one out for that flight as a relative reading within the flight, says so, and mentions that making the water-stress map gives you a lasting map layer. A fixed, crop-specific method is available for soybean, maize, cotton and wheat before heading.

Orion never estimates a temperature. Every number comes from the temperature map. If a folder has no thermal data, it says so.

A close look at the imagery

"What's at the hottest spot?" "What is hot spot 3?" "What's in stressed area 2?" "Describe this site."

Orion can open the flight's color map and look. For a spot, it shows a close-up and a wider view with crosshairs on the exact place, and re-frames if the first view was too tight or too wide. For "the hottest spot" or "hot spot 3" it finds the place from the thermal data itself, so nothing can be mistyped. For a whole site, it takes one overview. The views it looked at are shown to you in the chat.

What it says is a visual reading of the photo, not a measurement, and it will not claim to see things only a few pixels across.

Highlights and the map

Orion's highlights are images in the chat: the marked field views, heatmaps, thermal maps and close-ups above. Orion does not draw on the live map. It can, however, see what the map is showing (the imagery switched on, the thermal anomalies marked, the area you last measured), so you can ask about them directly.

How-to questions

"Where is the flyability tool?" "How do I create a public share link?" "What does this column in Zonal Analytics mean?"

For every question, Orion searches the Omniris guides for the sections that match, and answers from them with the actual place in the app: which button, which view, which tab. It sees only the guides that apply to you:

Orion is told never to invent buttons, menus or pages the guides do not describe. If the guides do not cover something, it says it has no documentation on that feature and offers to look at your data instead.

What Orion can do for you

Orion has a fixed set of tools. It decides which to use from your question, and can chain them: find a place, then check the forecast there. While a tool runs, the line above the answer says what it is doing.

Three more things happen around the conversation itself:

• A picture of where you started. When you start a new conversation, Omniris keeps a record of what you had open: the site, customer, folder and dates, and a picture of the map as it looked. If the browser cannot take that picture, Omniris draws it from the same imagery, with the numbered anomaly markers on it, using only imagery you are allowed to open. This feeds the exported document (below); it does not change Orion's answers.
• Export. Any conversation can be saved as a web page, a PDF, or a PDF filed into a vault folder you choose. See History, export and privacy.
• Help. The Orion guide opens in a window from the ? button, without leaving the chat.

Inside your permissions

An assistant that can read your data must never become a way around your permissions. Orion is built so that it cannot, whatever it is asked.

Read-only, enforced by the database

Orion's record lookups run under a separate database sign-in that can only read. On top of that, every request is checked before it runs: anything that would add, change or delete is refused. Each lookup is also capped at 30 seconds.

That sign-in sees your records through views (filtered windows onto the data) that each contain only rows belonging to you: your jobs, the files in your vault, your invoices, and so on. The filter is applied by the database itself, not by Orion following instructions. If Orion were to reach for someone else's data, the answer would simply be empty. If the database cannot tell who is asking, every view is empty.

Scope by role

• Your record lookups are personal. They cover your own account. Records that belong to an organization rather than to you are not part of them.
• Imagery follows the folder browser. The temperature, field-condition and close-look tools, and the note of what you have open, follow the same rule as the folder browser: a folder you can open (your own, your organization's as your role allows, one shared with you, or the folder of a job assigned to you) can be read; any other folder is refused.
• Heights come from your own runs. The 3D height tool reads only map and 3D runs you started.
• Contacts stay private. Your contacts are yours. An organization manager asking Orion sees their own contacts, never their pilots'.
• The guides follow your role. Pilots get the pilot guide, clients the client guide (see How-to questions).

What Orion can never do

• Change anything. It cannot create, edit or delete jobs, files, folders, messages, settings or anything else.
• See another customer's data. Not through a lookup, not through a tool, not through the note of what you have open. Every item in that note is checked against your access before Orion is told about it, and a note cannot be faked by typing one into the chat.
• Read sign-in details or stored service keys. These are closed to Orion completely, for every account.
• Show you raw system identifiers. Orion is instructed to use names, folder paths and friendly numbers such as job and invoice numbers instead.

How Orion answers

Units

• Temperatures in °F first, with °C in parentheses: 76.4 °F (24.7 °C).
• Field areas in acres first (square feet for small areas), with hectares or square metres in parentheses.
• Weather in °F and miles per hour.
• Heights in feet first, with metres in parentheses: 12.3 ft (3.75 m).

Links to what it found

Orion links what it names, so you never have to hunt for it:

• job numbers and invoice numbers open the job or the invoice;
• file names open the file, and folder names open the folder;
• people's names open their profile;
• certificates and insurance documents download.

Marked field images, heatmaps, thermal maps and close-ups appear in the answer. Click one to enlarge it; it closes with its Close button. Images are kept for 90 days, after which the conversation shows "[image expired]" in their place.

When it does not know

Orion is built to say so rather than fill a gap:

• Not in the guides: it says it has no documentation on that feature, and offers to check your data instead.
• Not made yet: no finished 3D run, no thermal data, a flight without the right camera bands. It says what is missing and, where it can, how to make it.
• Not shown to it: an area you drew but which it was not shown. It asks you to describe it or draw it again.
• Not reliable by eye: counting. It points to AI detection results or a detection run.

Time and steps

Orion can take several steps for one question, but not without limit. After about two minutes of its own thinking time (time spent reading imagery does not count), it stops looking things up, answers with what it has found, and says plainly which parts it could not finish. If a question would need more than twelve steps, it asks you to make the question more specific. Answers reflect your data at the moment you ask; ask again after an upload or a new run to see the change.

Usage and limits

Orion is one of the services Omniris measures each month, alongside map tiles, address lookups and weather. Its use is counted in tokens: the units of text an AI model reads and writes. A longer conversation, or a question that needs several lookups, uses more.

• A monthly allowance. Your plan includes a free allowance of Orion use each month.
• Overage, if your plan has it. Beyond the allowance, use is charged as overage, either from your credits as it happens (one credit for each $0.25) or on a monthly invoice to the card on file. On a plan without overage, Orion pauses until the next month.
• A spend cap you set. Overage stops at the monthly cap. With personal billing you set your own cap; in an organization, managers set the organization's cap and can set a cap for each member.
• Who pays. Use bills to your own account, or to your organization. If you belong to several organizations, you choose a default one for charges.
• See it any time. Account → Usage shows this month's use against the allowance, the overage so far where you are the one paying, and your cap.

The check happens before each question. If the allowance and cap are already used up, Orion says why (for example, the monthly cap has been reached) and what will fix it. If they run out part-way through a question, Orion stops looking things up, answers with what it already found, says which parts it could not finish, and shows the same message.

On an on-premises installation, Orion is not counted against each person in this way.

History, export and privacy

Your conversations

• Kept with your account. Every conversation is saved, listed newest first, so you can pick it up where you left off. The whole conversation is kept. On a long one, Orion re-reads the most recent part with each question, so it stays focused without anything being thrown away.
• Named for you. A conversation takes its first question as its name. Rename it in place from the list.
• Deleted when you say. Deleting a conversation removes it and its messages from your history.
• Private to you. Your list shows only your own conversations. Nobody else in your organization, and none of the pilots or clients you work with, can open, read or export them.
• Start fresh for a new topic. Follow-ups refer back to the current conversation, so a new chat avoids carrying an old folder or job forward.

Export

Any conversation can be exported from the conversation list or the side panel:

The document contains:

• a notice at the top that the answers were produced by Orion, an AI assistant, from the data in the vault, and should be checked against the underlying imagery and records before being relied on;
• the context at the start: the site, customer, folder and dates you had open, and a picture of the map as it looked, or a note saying why there is no picture;
• each question and Orion's answer exactly as you saw them on screen, with the images Orion made.

Links to jobs, files and people become plain names in the document, since they only work inside the app. Images older than 90 days print as a note that they have expired. Nothing is stored ahead of time: the document is built from the conversation each time you export it, so it always includes the newest answers.

When Orion is unavailable

Orion runs on Omniris in the cloud (Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud), in the data center edition, and on-premises. Its AI is an online service in every case, including on-premises: the site needs its internet connection for Orion to answer.

On an on-premises site, Omniris watches that connection. When Orion cannot be reached, it says so instead of failing silently:

• In the web app, an OFFLINE strip appears above the message box in the Orion view and the side panel, with the reason: the site has been put into offline mode, the site has no internet connection, or the AI service cannot be reached right now and will be tried again automatically.
• The message box, send button and suggested questions are switched off, so nothing is sent into a void.
• Your earlier conversations stay readable.
• When the connection returns, the strip clears and Orion is ready again.
• Anywhere else, including the desktop application, a question sent while Orion is unavailable is turned away with the same reason, before anything is started.

Orion's weather and place-finding tools also use online services. If one of those cannot be reached while Orion itself can, Orion is told why, and says that part is unavailable rather than guessing.

What Orion will not do

An assistant is only as useful as it is honest about what it cannot do.

• No actions. Orion reads and explains. It never creates, changes or deletes anything.
• Personal records only. Record lookups cover your own account. Records owned by an organization are not included, even when you can see them in the app.
• No invented numbers. Temperatures come only from a thermal flight's temperature map, heights only from a finished 3D run, counts only from AI detection results or your records.
• Not a measuring tool. Volumes, areas, distances, and the shape of 3D models and point clouds belong to the viewers and measuring tools. Orion points you to them.
• Heights describe the whole area. Orion reports the tallest point and typical heights across a survey; it does not say which object the tallest point belongs to. On a large survey it works from a reduced copy of the height maps, at most 2,048 pixels on a side, not from every pixel.
• A look is a look. A close look at the imagery is a visual reading, not a survey. It cannot find every instance of something, and cannot see objects only a few pixels across.
• Imagery only, not documents. Orion reads imagery results and information about your files. It does not read the contents of PDFs, videos, archives or other documents in your vault.
• Nothing drawn on the live map. Orion's highlights are images in the chat.
• Bounded work. Up to 200 rows per lookup, three flight dates per field answer, twelve steps and about two minutes of thinking per question.
• Busy moments. Field images take real processing. If too many are being made at once, Orion asks you to try again in a moment.
• A moment in time. Answers reflect your data when you ask.
• AI can be wrong. Orion is careful, but it is an AI assistant. Check important figures against the imagery and records, as the exported document reminds every reader.
• Where it runs. Orion is on the web and in the desktop application, not in the phone app, and it needs an internet connection to its AI service.

Where it helps

Related papers

Orion reads the results the rest of Omniris produces. These papers describe them:

• Maps you can measure: maps and 3D results made from drone photos, including the height maps Orion reads.
• Multispectral and agriculture: multispectral flights and field analysis.
• Temperatures you can measure: thermal flights and the temperature maps Orion reads.
• AI detection and verification: the detection results Orion counts from.
• Digital twins you can see and measure: the 3D models where measuring is done.
• LiDAR you can work with: LiDAR processing; Orion can answer questions about your LiDAR runs.
• Site Manager and Site Navigator: the sites and map views Orion can see you working in.
• Mission planning and flight safety: planning and flying a mission safely.
• Evidence you can prove: the custody record an exported conversation joins when filed in a folder.
• Security, encryption and data control: how Omniris protects and controls your data.
• Sharing, delivery and integrations: sharing folders and delivering results to others.

Glossary

AI detection

An Omniris run that finds and counts objects in your photos; its results can be checked and verified by a person.

CWSI (crop water stress index)

A measure of how thirsty a crop is, worked out from the temperature of its leaves.

Flight category

The aviation summary of visibility and cloud: VFR (good) through MVFR and IFR to LIFR (poorest).

Flyability score

A 0-to-100 rating of how suitable a day is for flying a drone, from the forecast.

Heatmap

An image that colors each part of a field by the value of a measurement.

Marked image

A picture of a field with the areas that match your question outlined and numbered.

Overage

Use beyond the monthly allowance in your plan, charged up to the spend cap.

Surface model

A height map of the top of everything: ground, trees, buildings.

Terrain model

A height map of the bare ground, with trees and buildings removed.

Thermal anomaly (hot spot)

A place noticeably hotter than its surroundings, found by a search of a thermal flight.

Token

The unit of text an AI model reads and writes; Orion's use is counted in tokens.

Vegetation index

A number worked out from the light a crop reflects in different colors, used to judge its health. NDVI is the best known.

View (in a database)

A filtered window onto stored records; Orion's lookups see only views limited to your own rows.