This is how drone LiDAR is helping regional surveyors unlock value

The use of drone-based LiDAR in land surveying has become progressively more common over the past few years. Now, regional surveyors have the opportunity to leverage the value of drone LiDAR for land and topographic surveys. This means benefits like increased efficiency, better detail, and an improved bottom line. Here’s how this technology is helping.

1. Useable data

Regional surveyors are presented with some unique challenges, as sites are usually large parcels of land, with hard-to-access features including rugged topography and thick vegetation. LiDAR comes into play because it can penetrate dense vegetation and as a result, capture the landform detail in areas otherwise inaccessible by conventional means. Drone LiDAR also captures data at a very high resolution in a fraction of the time and cost.

2. One survey, multiple uses

In many instances, tree locations and canopy spreads, geological and geotechnical features, vegetation clearances, and more can be extracted for use by other project stakeholders like engineers, town planners, bush fire consultants, arborists, etc. This is because the detail captured in a LiDAR point cloud can also be used to meet the needs of other project stakeholders.

3. Quality control

Quality control is critical in all surveys and engineering. LiDAR surveys should be quality-controlled in line with the ICSM Guidelines for Digital Elevation Data. With every survey, companies should provide a report that simply and clearly explains the quality control and validation process, along with the achieved level of accuracy, and any limitations. Later on, this report can be used and understood by other project stakeholders thus providing a robust record of the acquisition, processing, and delivery of the survey.

To fully unlock the value of drone LiDAR, it is worthwhile engaging with a specialist firm with established capabilities. ACI has advanced measuring equipment for LiDAR Surveying and Photogrammetry that includes airborne LiDAR, airborne LiDAR unmanned (drones), Mobile LiDAR, aerial photogrammetry, and echo sounder technology. Contact us today.