The right airframe for the site.
Two survey platforms run two compliance lanes: a commercial aircraft for private AEC work and a US built, NDAA compliant aircraft for government, DOT and utility work. Two smaller airframes cover the sites that do not want a heavy lift. Same crew, same standards, same deliverables.
The platform is a procurement decision, not a preference.
Public agency and NDAA restricted work rules out most of the market on the airframe alone. Keeping two platforms in service means the same crew and the same processing can serve both lanes.
| DJI M400 | Harris Aerial H6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Lane | Private AEC | Government, DOT, NDAA restricted |
| Build | Commercial | US built |
| Elevation sensor | Zenmuse L3 | GeoCue TrueView 515 |
| Imagery | Zenmuse P1 per scope | Integrated with the TrueView |
| Thermal | Zenmuse H30T per scope | Not carried |
| Deliverables | Identical | Identical |
Airframe and sensor origin documentation goes into the bid package on public work, so procurement can verify compliance rather than take our word for it.
Not every site wants a heavy lift.
A two acre infill lot, a tight courtyard, one elevation somebody needs to see today. Rolling the M400 out for those is slow for you and expensive for no reason. Two smaller aircraft cover that work, and they also mean a grounded airframe never turns into a missed schedule.
DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2
The mechanical shutter is the point. It exposes the whole frame at once, so a moving aircraft does not bake rolling shutter distortion into every image, which is why this airframe stayed in survey kits long after it stopped being new. The right call on small parcels, infill lots and tight sites where mobilizing a heavy lift costs more than the job is worth.
DJI Mavic 2 Pro
Site recon, close facade detail, tight quarters and anything somebody needs to see today. It is not a mapping instrument and we do not scope it as one. It is what goes up when the answer has to be looked at rather than measured.
What actually collects the data.
Five payloads across the fleet. Two are in service today. Three are specified and sourced for the job that needs them, and we tell you which is which before you scope around one.
DJI Zenmuse L3
Survey grade aerial LiDAR with an integrated RGB camera for colorizing the cloud. The primary elevation sensor on private AEC work: bare earth under canopy, contours, surfaces and corridor sections.
GeoCue TrueView 515
US built integrated LiDAR and imaging system on a Hesai laser. This is the elevation sensor for government, DOT and NDAA restricted work, flying on the US built airframe.
DJI Zenmuse P1
Full frame 45 megapixel photogrammetry payload for orthomosaics, textured mesh and facade documentation where imagery resolution is the deliverable rather than a byproduct.
DJI Zenmuse H30T
Radiometric thermal paired with visible imagery on the same pass, so an anomaly can be located on a real picture of the building instead of described in a paragraph.
Terrestrial laser scanner
Ground based scanning for balcony undersides, garages, breezeways and interiors that no aircraft can see. Registered into the same observed control frame as the aerial data, so the result is one measurable model rather than two that roughly agree.
Why we say it that way
Plenty of capture companies list every sensor they could rent. If you are planning a thermal roof survey around a specific window, you need to know whether the sensor is on the shelf or on order. Ask us and you will get the real answer, on this page and on the phone.
Harris Aerial H6 with GeoCue TrueView 515
A US built hybrid heavy lift platform carrying a GeoCue TrueView 515 LiDAR system. This is the aircraft we fly when a contract restricts the platform, which increasingly it does on public agency, DOT and utility work.
Same crew, same control procedure, same classification and QC, same deliverables. The only thing that changes is the tail on the aircraft and the paperwork that goes with it.
- US built airframe
- Hesai laser with integrated imaging
- Origin documentation for procurement
- Corridor, topographic and site collections
- Same formats as the commercial lane
The half of the job that is not flying.
Ground control
Targets set and observed on site, tied to the horizontal and vertical datum your project runs on. Residuals reported with every delivery so accuracy can be checked rather than assumed.
Terrestrial scanning
Ground based LiDAR for undersides, garages, interiors and anything the aircraft cannot see, registered into the same control frame as the aerial data.
Processing and QC
Classification checked rather than accepted from an automatic filter, then verified against control before anything ships. If the numbers do not hold, it goes back before you see it.
From raw returns to a file that opens.
A collection is only as good as what comes out the other end. These are the tools the data moves through on the way from the sensor to your desk.
Processing and reconstruction
- Agisoft Metashape
- The photogrammetry engine. Alignment, dense cloud, mesh, texture and orthomosaic generation, with control held and check points reported. Where imagery resolution is the deliverable, the job runs through here.
- DJI Terra
- Processes both LiDAR and photogrammetry data off the Zenmuse payloads. Point cloud generation and reconstruction, and the first pass on most M400 collections.
- GeoCue TrueView EVO
- Processing for the TrueView 515 on the US built airframe. Trajectory, calibration and point cloud generation for the NDAA lane.
Classification, QC and delivery
- LP360
- Point cloud classification and quality control. Ground, vegetation, structure and low noise separated and reviewed by a person, then checked against control before anything ships.
- DJI Modify
- Point cloud classification and editing. Cleaning a cloud and separating classes before it goes on to surfacing or delivery.
- Autodesk ReCap
- Registration and RCP delivery, so a design team opens the cloud in the Autodesk stack without converting anything.
Visualization
- Nubigon
- High fidelity point cloud visualization for walkthroughs and presentation renders, for the moment a board or an owner has to see the site rather than measure it.
- DJI Reality
- Visualization of finished reality capture datasets inside the DJI workflow.
Local, insured, and current.
- FAA Part 107
- Certificated remote pilot. Airspace authorizations handled in house as part of planning, not the morning of the flight.
- Liability coverage
- One million dollars or greater. Certificates provided on request and included in bid packages.
- Veteran owned
- Service disabled veteran owned. Currently self certifying; SBA VetCert has not been completed, and we say so rather than implying otherwise.
- Based here
- Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. Same day mobilization across the Panhandle is normal, not an exception.
Start with one site.
Send the boundary and the deliverable you need. We scope it, fly it, and return the data in your format, typically in under seven days.