Virtual Surveyor Unveils Innovative Method of Generating Topographic Surfaces from Drone Survey Data

This innovative triangulation process is included in Version 8.7 of the popular Virtual Surveyor software package, along with upgrades in overall ease of use.

Virtual Surveyor is a robust surveying software that bridges the gap between drone photogrammetric processing applications and engineering design packages, enabling surveyors to derive topographic information from drone data needed by engineers for construction, mining, and excavation projects. The software combines drone orthophotos, digital surface models (DSMs), and/or LiDAR point clouds to create an interactive virtual environment where users generate CAD models, create cut-and-fill maps and calculations, or calculate volume reports.

The new Auto-Flip Edges algorithm is a significant improvement on the traditional method of generating triangular irregular networks (TINs) from elevation points extracted from drone surveys. The new process uses the same elevation points, but it also leverages terrain information between the points to optimize the placement of triangles by automatically flipping edges when needed. This results in a TIN that represents the actual terrain surface more accurately than traditional triangulation.