Do More with Your Drone

Did you buy a drone for your business to take cool photos of your projects? You can definitely get some really cool photos and videos with your drone, but if that’s all you’re using it for you’re really missing out.

As of February 2022, there are over 329,114 commercial drones registered in the US. Many of these drones are used in the construction, home building, and land development industries. For these industries, combining a drone with a TraceAir has countless benefits and unbeatable ROI. The accuracy, speed, and cost-savings are truly remarkable. Put your drone to work! Read below to see what else you can do with your drone.

Capture 3D Topo Surveys — Use your drone with TraceAir to capture fast, detailed 3D topos. This is an excellent alternative to costly aerial topos during the land acquisition phase. TraceAir recommends our clients conduct a drone survey at the beginning of their project and then once a week through completion. This allows for very accurate tracking of progress and also a clear record that can always be revisited if needed. Our aerial images are accurate within 1/10th of a foot, identifying and preventing errors in the field before they become costly. With this data you can: 

• Determine straight and overground distance as well as the average grade at any location on your site
• Measure the area and perimeter of selected polygons
• Measure the elevation of any point on the job site for the current scan date and get your exact coordinates
• Review the elevations along a given path
• Calculate the amount of stockpile fill or the pit cut of the area you select
• Compare your current site conditions to any project plan
• Visualize planned and past grading with heatmaps

Track Progress and Verify Billing — Monitoring progress is essential to staying on schedule, course correcting when necessary, and ensures more accurate billing. Using TraceAir to conduct frequent scans allows project stakeholders to get real-time updates on how the job is progressing — measuring the amount of dirt moved, utilities put in place, roadways paved, etc. Additionally this benefits contractors, because accurate billing reduces disputes and results in faster payment.

Achieve Site Balance — Inaccurate site balance calculations can have major cost implications due to import/export costs for dirt. TraceAir's site intelligence software enables teams to stay on top of their site balancing by conducting regular scans and using our stockpiles tool to create ad-hoc planes from the existing grade in order to measure the volume of a pile (or pit) above the existing surface.

Prevent Costly Errors/Problem Solving/Decision Making — The data provided by TraceAir is extremely valuable when it comes to problem solving and decision making. Rather than making decisions using your best guess, TraceAir allows you and your team to make decisions using real data.

Improve Communication —  Perhaps one the best parts of the data you get from TraceAir is the ability to share it with your entire team. Between the owner, contractors, consultants, and public agencies, there is a lot of back-and-forth communication among the project team. When everyone is looking at the same information there is far less room for errors.

If you don’t own a drone or are not licensed to fly it, TraceAir has a large network of licensed drone pilots that can visit your job site. Most of our clients prefer to outsource their drone flights, but we welcome companies that want to do their own as well. Maximize your drone program's potential with the help of TraceAir. Get started today by requesting a demo.