Civil projects live or die by the accuracy of their earthworks quantities. A drone LiDAR capture replaces sparse GPS topo and optimistic spreadsheets with a centimetre-precise DTM of the entire site — captured in a single morning, validated to survey control, delivered into Civil 3D or 12d the same week.
Toggle through the three states of an earthworks comparison. The existing surface is what LiDAR captured. The design overlay is the engineered grade. The cut/fill view is what your estimator and earthworks contractor actually need — every cubic metre of material to move, where it sits, and the net balance across the site.
Existing surface. A LiDAR-derived DTM samples the ground every few centimetres across the entire site — no GPS tracks, no missed swales, no assumptions.
Conventional ground survey on a live civil site is slow, sparse and political. Surveyors walk what they can reach, GPS what they're asked to, and the resulting topo gets stretched well past where it's actually defensible. The cost is paid later — in unexpected cuts, surprise rock, claims and rework.
A 100-point topo on a 20-hectare site is one point every two thousand square metres. Anything between those points is interpolation, and interpolation hides the swales, rock shelves and stockpile remnants that drive variation orders.
Working surveyors around live plant, traffic and unsafe slopes adds days — and pulls site supervision away from the actual work — every time the topo needs updating.
Quantities are only as accurate as the surface they're calculated from. Cut/fill schedules built from sparse topo carry hidden tolerance that shows up as cost overrun rather than design risk.
Without a recent, validated surface, monthly claims rely on assumptions both sides distrust. The argument moves into the QS office instead of staying on site.
The whole site, captured in a single morning, at densities one to two orders of magnitude beyond ground survey. Everything downstream — quantities, design comparison, claims, as-built — runs from one validated truth.
A typical civil capture mobilises in the morning and returns a 50–200 ha site with one return per 100–500 mm. The crew never leaves the access road.
LandXML or DWG design surfaces are differenced against the captured DTM. Volumes drop out automatically — colour-coded, segment by segment, with cross-sections on demand.
Re-fly monthly. Each capture is geo-referenced to the same control, so progress claims become a deterministic comparison instead of a negotiation.
At handover, a final LiDAR pass produces an as-built surface that compares directly against the engineered design — the basis of any defect-period claim.
No surveyor walking live batters, traffic exposure or unstable spoil. The capture happens from above with the drone in segregated airspace.
Every output is geo-referenced to your nominated control, validated against ground checkpoints, and packaged for direct use in the design and earthworks software you already run.
Bare-earth digital terrain model at 0.1–0.5 m grid resolution, ready for design overlay and surface comparison.
Full classified cloud — ground, vegetation, structures, noise — for downstream use in any software that reads LAS.
Volumes against your design surface with isopach mapping, sectional breakdown and a signed summary report.
Contour intervals from 0.1 m, smoothed to a defined tolerance, with index contours labelled and ready to drop into a drawing set.
Sections at any chainage interval against existing, design, or both — produced as a deliverable or live tool for design iteration.
Survey-grade orthorectified imagery captured in the same flight, useful for site context, marketing and progress documentation.
Confirm site extent, deliverables and AHD/MGA control strategy. Place or verify ground control points if not pre-existing.
Single-mobilisation drone flight (typically 1–3 hours of airtime) covering the full project area to specified point density.
Trajectory correction, point classification, surface generation, control validation. Independent QA pass on every deliverable.
CAD-ready outputs packaged for your design and earthworks team. Re-fly cycles scheduled for progress claims or design iteration.
Tell us the site extent, the design package you're working from, and the deliverable format — we'll scope a capture window and price it in a single conversation.