The team were engaged early on during the tender stage of the project, which allowed for an aerial survey with GCP’s to be completed, the output was a point cloud tied into OS grid which provided a bare earth model. This resulted in cut and fill volumes to be accurately determined, allowing the tender to be completed.
Drone involvement on the project was increasingly beneficial for the team, it led to fast data collection and greater density of levels due to the way point clouds are generated. The flight plan is saved on Controller which allows repeat flights on same parameters.
This area was flown a year later as it was believed a contractor had been working in the area and deposited additional fill material, the two-point clouds were overlaid with each other which highlighted a ‘before and after’ set of levels and subsequently confirmed a change in height. This exercise is very hard to do conventional unless the surveyor records a tight grid which takes additional time, the drone does this automatically when collecting the data.