Development feasibility is a numbers exercise built on terrain assumptions. Drone LiDAR replaces the assumptions with a real, captured surface — driving slope analysis, buildable area, indicative yield and cut/fill budgets that survive the planning and engineering scrutiny they need to.
Toggle between slope classification, buildable area and indicative lot yield. The underlying DTM is the same — the town planner's slope map, the architect's constraint mask, and the development manager's yield estimate all come from one capture.
Slope classification. Derived directly from the LiDAR DTM by computing the gradient magnitude per cell. The bands match the buildability thresholds town planners and architects use for residential feasibility.
Development decisions live or die on early-stage assumptions. But the terrain layer underneath those assumptions — slope, drainage, ground levels, vegetation, easements — is usually inferred from contour mapping that's years old, sparsely sampled, or simply unavailable for the parcel.
Open contour mapping at 1 m or 2 m intervals smooths over the swales, low points and minor ridges that drive lot grading and drainage decisions. On a real parcel they routinely move buildable area boundaries by metres.
Walking a parcel gives a feel, not a number. Site slope, cut/fill budget, drainage extent and indicative yield can't be defended from a few photos and a gut estimate — even by experienced eyes.
Commissioning a traditional ground survey to feasibility-grade detail can add weeks to a due-diligence window. The result: feasibility numbers locked in before the survey returns, then quietly revised when reality lands.
Indicative lot count, platform heights, cut/fill budget and drainage works all feed the offer price. A 10% yield miss or a 50 mm platform error multiplies through the entire development budget.
A single drone capture early in due diligence produces the bare- earth DTM that drives every downstream feasibility view — slope classification, buildable area, indicative yield, cut/fill budgets, drainage extent and constraint maps. Captured in hours, delivered in days, defensible at planning.
100% of the site captured at sub-metre resolution. No sampled traverses, no interpolation between station points, no missed low spots.
Slope class raster (5-band) generated directly from the DTM. Buildability bands match the thresholds town planners, architects and stormwater engineers use day to day.
Drainage lines, low points, easement strips and steep batters identified and excluded from buildable area automatically — the constraint mask the architect actually needs.
Subdivision overlays drop onto the constraint mask with per-lot cut/fill, slope and buildability scoring. Yield estimates become a measurement, not an aspirational number.
Canopy structure, heritage trees, retention candidates and clearing burden all classified from the same capture — important for planning approvals and lot rationale.
Flight and processing typically inside a week — fast enough to inform the offer price rather than chase it. Often the difference between winning a deal and walking away.
Formatted for direct use in Civil 3D, 12d, AutoCAD, QGIS, ArcGIS and the standard feasibility templates development managers maintain.
Bare-earth surface at 0.5 – 1 m resolution, ready for slope analysis, drainage modelling and design overlay.
5-band slope map (flat / gentle / moderate / steep / very steep) matched to local planning thresholds.
Constraint-aware buildable polygon after slope, drainage setback and easement exclusions — drops straight into a feasibility plan.
Lot subdivision overlay with per-lot area, average slope, net cut/fill against an indicative platform and buildability score.
Trees over a configurable height threshold, canopy patches, drainage lines and other site constraints — for planning rationale.
Survey-grade contours at 0.25 m intervals and cross sections on demand — for early architecture, civil and landscape teams.
Parcel extent, planning controls, drainage context and deliverable list confirmed with development manager / consultant team.
Single-mobilisation drone flight covering the parcel at multi-return density. CASA permits, neighbour notifications, control set if required.
Bare-earth classification, slope raster, buildable mask, indicative yield analysis, vegetation inventory. Independent QA pass.
Feasibility-ready pack landed with development team and consultants inside the DD window — typically a week from go-ahead.
We capture greenfield, infill and brownfield parcels for development managers, town planners and consultant teams across Australia. Tell us the parcel, the DD window and the feasibility template you're running — we'll scope a capture that lands inside it.