Mapping flight · June 3, 2026
Alpine region · 5.9 ha test site
In alpine terrain we mapped an area of 5.9 ha with a relief of 506–557 m. The flight produced 379 photos at a ground resolution of 2.5 cm. Georeferencing was survey-grade via RTK with about 3 cm absolute accuracy, with no ground control points required.
379 photos · 147.9 M points · ≈ 3 cm
Orthophoto
An orthomosaic is a scale-accurate aerial image — every pixel carries a real GPS coordinate. You can measure directly in it (lengths, areas, distances), import it as a layer in GIS software, or use it for government permit submissions. What you see here is the real result of this flight, served from a tiled GeoTIFF pyramid — drag and zoom to navigate.
Textured 3D model
The 3D model shows every surface of the site with real photo texture — ground, vegetation, structures. It works for visualisations in marketing and sales materials, for volume and mass calculations on construction sites, and as a shared discussion surface in planning meetings. Compressed glTF binary loaded directly in the browser, no external viewer service needed — drag to rotate, scroll to zoom.
Smoothest on desktop. On a slow connection the first load can take a few seconds.
Surface Model (DSM)
The Digital Surface Model captures the top envelope of the site — ground plus everything standing on it: vegetation, buildings, power lines. Colour tones encode elevation directly (warmer = higher, cooler = lower). Used for volume calculations, shadow analysis and high-point identification.
Terrain Model (DTM)
The Digital Terrain Model shows only the bare ground — vegetation, buildings and other structures are filtered out. From it you compute real landforms, drainage, excavation volumes and realistic elevation profiles for construction planning. Generated from the classified ground points of the point cloud.
Plant Health (NDVI)
When flown with a multispectral sensor, the Plant Health analysis delivers an NDVI layer (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) — a map that reads vegetation vitality from the ratio between red and near-infrared reflectance. Standard for agriculture, forestry and vegetation monitoring.
Numbers
- Area
- 5.9 ha
- Photos (captured / reconstructed)
- 379
- Point cloud (dense)
- 147.9 M
- Flight time
- ~6 min
- Elevation profile
- 506 → 557 m
- GCPs required
- 0 (RTK)
- Precision
- ≈ 3 cm
What the client receives
A single delivery contains every format engineering, marketing and government workflows need. You don't need to convert files afterwards or order anything as an add-on — what's captured on the flight day arrives as a complete package. The list below is exactly what came out of this flight.
- Orthomosaic · GeoTIFF, 70 MB
- Full point cloud · LAZ, 46 M points
- Ground-classified point cloud · LAZ, 23.7 M points
- DSM — Digital Surface Model · GeoTIFF
- DTM — Digital Terrain Model · GeoTIFF
- Textured 3D mesh · GLB · OBJ · FBX
- Open processing report (PDF, 20 MB)
Equipment & processing
Which equipment flies and which software processes the data determines the precision and the available delivery formats. On this site, RTK meant no ground control points (GCPs) were needed — what would otherwise cost half a survey day on a standard property.
- DJI Matrice 4T
- GNSS georeferencing · ~1 m absolute, no GCPs
- Standard Processing — included in the package price, no hourly billing
Methodology
The flight was carried out with a DJI Matrice 4T. Georeferencing ran through the onboard DJI RTK with an RTK fix and about 3 cm absolute accuracy – survey-grade and without GCPs.
In alpine terrain with a relief of 506–557 m, the 5.9 ha area was flown. This produced 379 photos in about 6 minutes of flight time. Overlap and height above ground are not documented here.
The 6 minutes of flight time are only the tip of a full working day. Preparation comes before, processing after – together these make up the actual effort.
Processing was done with OpenDroneMap in the ultra profile (premium): dense point cloud, SMRF ground classification, DSM, DTM, textured mesh and orthomosaic. A report PDF is part of the outputs.
Open processing report (PDF, 20 MB)What this request would look like in the calculator
If you run the calculator with this flight's parameters, here's what you get. Same engine, same prices — the whole showcase is a quote you can touch.
Inputs
- Project type
- Surveying / Mapping
- Road distance from Zürich
- 0 km
- Scope
- Property
- Precision
- RTK
- Output
- Plus 3D mesh + ground LAZ
- Spotters
- No, simple operation
- Lead time
- Flexible (>4 weeks)
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