Rapid, accurate data collection that minimizes time in the field

With ever increasing demand across many industry sectors for accurate, up to date site data for new land development and future planning, topographic surveys have become a mainstay for many surveying companies. Yet traditional topographic survey capture and processing methods such as total stations can be slow, highly technical to operate, and don’t provide context of the entire site. This restricts the number of jobs that can be completed in a day.

Emesent’s topographic survey solution combines rapid data capture with high accuracy results to enhance workflow efficiencies and drive business value – ultimately improving competitiveness.

Traditional methods are slow and error prone

The use of traditional methods for topographic surveys, such as total stations and GNSS can require significant time to set up equipment, take measurements, and capture the survey area. This process can be slow and labor intensive, especially in large, difficult-to-access areas or challenging terrains such as dense vegetation or steep slopes – and is not always feasible, resulting in gaps in data coverage or an inability to effectively capture variations in terrain. Urban environments can also present unique challenges due to high traffic volumes, objects that obscure line of sight, and urban canyons which block satellite signals. Equipment loss or theft is also a common issue, causing loss of working time and delays on site, as well as the additional cost of replacement.

Use of drone photogrammetry is a common alternative for large area topographic surveys, however processing time is significant and this method is not suitable for data capture in highly vegetated areas as it is unable to penetrate below the tree canopy. Shadowing in urban environments can also present a challenge.

More recently the use of SLAM based methods has gained in popularity for rapid 3D capture, however SLAM too can have its limitations. Drift and slip can be a major challenge, decreasing scan accuracy when capturing long linear assets such as power lines and roadways. And manually georeferencing and aligning large scans is a time consuming, labor-intensive process which introduces potential for error.