Recon Aerial is an aerial drone surveying company that specializes in commercial drone surveys. We provide drone surveys to landowners, engineers and architects for power and utility planning and maintenance operations, land-use planning, environmental surveys, earthworks, mining feature assessment, commercial development, landfill surveys to complete as-built drawings and a variety of other purposes

Drone surveys are not meant to compete with or replace land surveys. Drone surveys are powerful and insightful planning tools. Drones are increasingly being used by landowners, developers,  architects and planners to assess existing site conditions before site development. This type of pre-planning using a geo-referenced site map, 3D point cloud/model, elevations profile and digital terrain model allows planners to situate roads, drainage, grading, cut/fill sections and place site features/buildings taking into account existing environmental features without ever having visited the site; this is possible since the drone survey exports provide the site data that is needed to complete this work. Drone surveys enhance the existing planning/development workflow and provide professionals with the opportunity to work smarter, faster and deliver a more thorough design.

Recon Aerial conducts first conducts the aerial drone survey in full compliance with the RPAS regulations and in conformance to our internal procedures for safe, efficient drone operations.

Once the drone operations are complete and we have processed the exports we either provide the files directly to our clients OR  Recon creates the AutoCAD exports/workups specific to the clients’ development objectives. The exports we provide are either imprecise/indicative or precise in relation to the cadastral survey depending on whether we receive the land survey data (txt, XML or other).

The drone survey itself is accurate to 2-4cm in the XYZ from 80 m (262ft) with one ground control point (GCP).

As shown above in the photogrammetry survey (map/model) another excellent use case for drone surveying is for planning and development. The map and model were created in less than 24 hrs and included 3 hr drive time, hiking and setup, 4 drone flights, and 4 hours processing time combining 1100+ images for a 40-acre property. The total area of the orthorectified map produced was approximately 162 acres and the ground sampling distance was 0.8 in/px or 2.0 cm/pix.

The purpose of the aerial drone survey in this case was to export various files from the drone mapping software including the elevations and digital terrain model into Auto-Cad for planning/development purposes. Specifically, this drone survey was conducted to submit an initial rezoning application. The client had the drone survey conducted in order to provide the documentation to the planner prior to submitting it to the municipal authorities.  The client did not want to go through the expense and time to undertake a complete land survey to submit for rezoning approval since there was a risk the rezoning would not be approved.

The output for this client is shown here as a before and after comparison. This demonstrates very clearly the strength of the drone survey as a tool for site development. We have included property lines, setbacks from high water as well as elevations on both the geo-referenced orthomosaic and digital terrain model. Now we can add site features such as buildings, docks, roads, grading, earthworks, drainage, septic systems, power corridors, etc.

Upon completing the drone survey Recon Aerials’ GIS team created several AutoCAD outputs for the client in order to facilitate construction and land use planning.   This drawing below clearly demonstrates how drones can be used to set out the construction plan. We have included property lines, building locations, the aspect of the structures in relation to the waterfront, as well as the building size. We have also included roads, paths, docks, and other features that allow for clear visualization of the future build site in a much better way than would typically be available from a line diagram.

Please get in touch, we are happy to field any questions. Please use the Calendarly link below to book a zoom call if that is convenient for you!