Drone Based Measured Survey for Major Retail Complex Roof
Project Snapshot
Sector: Commercial Retail & Facilities Management
Service: Drone LiDAR Surveys
Equipment: DJI M350 RTK Drone with Hovermap ST-X LiDAR Payload
Challenge: Mapping an expansive roof area with hidden high level plant equipment that would take days to survey with terrestrial scanners.
Deliverables: Geo-referenced 3D Point Cloud suitable for the creation of AutoCAD plan drawings
The Challenge
A major retail complex in Grays required accurate roof plan drawings for upcoming maintenance and development works. The building featured a vast, multi level roof space populated with complex HVAC units, ducting, and plant equipment much of which was obscured behind high level screening and panelling.
Sending a traditional ground-based surveying team to manually map this expansive area would have taken several days, if not weeks. Navigating the maze of plant equipment on foot posed significant safety risks and would cause prolonged disruption to site operations. Furthermore, standard terrestrial laser scanners would struggle to achieve the necessary line of sight over the panelling to accurately capture the hidden assets.
The Vertex Solution
To drastically reduce time on site and capture every hidden detail from above, Vertex Air was commissioned to conduct a comprehensive drone LiDAR survey We deployed our DJI M350 RTK commercial drone equipped with the highly advanced Hovermap ST-X LiDAR payload.
Operating safely from the ground, our pilots flew systematic passes over the entire retail complex. The active LiDAR sensor easily penetrated the gaps in the roof panelling, mapping the true, hard geometry of the hidden plant equipment from an aerial vantage point. This approach bypassed the line-of-sight limitations of ground scanners and ensured absolutely no blind spots were left behind in the data.
The Result
What would have taken days of hazardous manual measurement was completed safely in a fraction of the time.
Vertex Air delivered a millimetre-accurate, fully geo-referenced 3D LiDAR point cloud of the entire roof area. This robust digital dataset was handed over to the client, enabling their engineering team to seamlessly extract precise measurements and generate flawless 2D AutoCAD roof plan drawings without ever needing to step foot on the roof.
Learn more about how Vertex Air delivers survey-grade 3D CAD data, and explore our full range of Drone LiDAR Surveys and Drone 3D Mapping
