THE GROUND TRUTH — SURVEY-SUPPORT DATA
Control-verified aerial data, built for your surveyor's workflow.
Some jobs need more than a picture that's roughly in the right place. The Ground Truth is aerial data capture with real ground control underneath it — targets laid across the site, checked with survey-grade GNSS, and carried through processing so the resulting model holds position instead of floating. The output is built to be handed to a licensed surveyor or civil engineer and dropped straight into their workflow, in their coordinate system, in the file formats they actually use. We fly and process. Your surveyor certifies. That division of labor is deliberate.
Licensed land surveying firms that need aerial data collection capacity, civil engineering firms, site development contractors preparing for a survey, land developers evaluating a parcel, and anyone whose surveyor has said "I need topo on this and I don't have the crew this month."
- Site reconnaissance and mission planning around terrain, canopy, and obstructions
- Placement of ground control points across the site, distributed for geometry rather than convenience — typically 5–9 on a small site, scaled up with acreage
- Survey-grade GNSS observation of each control point
- Independent check points held out of the solution to verify the result
- Programmed flight at consistent GSD with high overlap, including cross-hatch passes
- Photogrammetric processing with control constrained
- Accuracy verification against the withheld check points
- Classified point cloudLAS or LAZ, ground/non-ground separated
- Digital Terrain Model (bare earth) and Digital Surface ModelGeoTIFF
- Contour linesAt client-specified interval — DWG/DXF and SHP
- Georeferenced orthomosaicGeoTIFF with world file
- BreaklinesWhere site conditions warrant, on request
- Control reportTarget locations, observation method, processing residuals, check point comparison, and a stated accuracy result
Turnaround: 5–10 business days from flight, depending on site size and deliverable set.
- • CAD deliverable package (DWG/DXF, layered to client standards) — +$450
- • Additional contour interval or alternate datum delivery — +$150
- • Repeat capture of the same site within 12 months (control reuse) — 30% off base tier
- • Heavy vegetation or dense canopy sites — surcharge quoted after recon; bare-earth extraction under canopy is limited by what the sensor can see through and will be scoped honestly upfront
- • Licensed surveyor coordination — quoted per project through a partner firm