TIL the difference a small drone can make at a dig site

We were mapping a site near Mesa Verde and started with the old total station method. Then a grad student brought in a basic DJI Mini 2 drone for a day. The drone gave us a full site map in two hours, while the ground survey would have taken three days. The overhead shots showed wall lines we completely missed from the ground. Has anyone else tried using consumer drones for initial site surveys?

2 comments

2 Comments

kaip112h ago

But you lose all the ground-level context that way.

dylanh973h ago

Oh man, that's so true. We had the same thing happen on a coastal survey last year. We were walking grids for days, missing so much because the brush was thick. Someone flew a little Phantom over it for an hour and we instantly saw shell midden patterns and old post holes from a fishing camp. It was all right there, just invisible from our angle. Totally changed how we start any project now.