Virtual Surveyor has added Basic Topographic Design tools to Version 10 of its smart drone surveying package allowing users to design simple terrain changes, such as graded roads, water ponds, and flat building surfaces, on top of their surveys.
To accurately visualize these future topographies, Virtual Surveyor has re-organized its software plans around the concept of time.
In Version 10, a new Mountain plan has been added between Ridge and Peak, and all three are differentiated by the concept of Time. The Ridge plan contains functionality users need to survey one moment in time from a single drone data set, while Mountain introduces Timelines to compare two or more surveys conducted at different times, or Time Steps. The Peak plan now includes Topographic Design functions to create structures to be built at a future time.
“The new Topographic Design tools in the Peak plan were developed for engineering surveyors to design rock walls, roads, or water ponds in the existing terrain for excavations, mines, quarries, water management and construction projects,” said Tom Op ‘t Eyndt, Virtual Surveyor CEO. “Designs can be exported in machine model formats for use in software to operate bulldozers, graders, and other Earth-moving equipment.”
The Peak plan’s Topographic Design functions enable engineering surveyors to plan a variety of new features, creating new Time Steps in the Timeline. The user simply draws the future structure on the baseline UAV-derived orthophoto or elevation model. The software corrects the angle and alignment of the feature to smoothly connect it with upper, lower and surrounding terrain surfaces. The existing cut-and-fill tool calculates the volume of dirt or rock that must be removed or added to achieve the planned design.