Appreciation post: that drone mapping demo in Austin saved me 4 hours on a site walk

Watched a rep run a LiDAR drone over an old foundation slab near the river last Tuesday, and the point cloud came up on my tablet before I could even fold my measuring tape, so has anyone else swapped manual grade checks for this yet?

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tyler_fox4129d ago

That "before I could even fold my measuring tape" part hit home. I did the same thing on a retention pond survey last month and it cut my field time down to almost nothing. One thing I'd say though is don't ditch the manual checks completely yet. I still carry a prism pole and do a couple of spot shots on the ground control points before I trust the drone data fully, especially if you're on a slope or near trees where the GPS can bounce. Also, make sure you set your grid spacing right on the tablet before you fly, because I messed that up once and ended up with a point cloud so dense it took forever to process back at the office. Save the 4 hours on the site, but don't trade it for 4 hours of fixing the model later.