Virtual Surveyor has announced the sixth version of its drone-based surveying software suite, touting significant workflow and interface enhancements.

Designed for processing UAV-derived imagery, the Virtual Surveyor software suite is primarily aimed at stitching together orthophotos and digital terrain models to create interactive 3D models of a surveyed area.

Touting themselves as bridging the gap between a photogrammetry suite and a CAD package, Virtual Surveyor is designed to integrate with CAD suites, and provides a range of functions including polygon volume calculation and an array of export options.

“Surveyors who have used the Virtual Surveyor package in the past will be amazed at how easily they can manipulate data and how quickly the software renders results of even the most complex topographies,” said Tom Op ‘t Eyndt, Managing Director of Virtual Surveyor nv in Belgium.

“The focus of Version 6 development has been to streamline the workflow – from the importing of drone data to exporting topo information into CAD – to make the surveyor more productive,” he said.

Enhancements announced by Virtual Surveyor include:

Easier Editing – The new editing functions allows users to quickly select, delete or move individual point and lines placed by the computer during the automated creation of elevation points. The associated Undo/Redo function allows reversing all edit operations.

Better CAD Integration – The addition of Descriptor functionality means that point descriptions remain with the point during export to CAD, working the same way as the land surveyor collects data in the field.

3D Geometry Retained – All points, lines and other data imported into the software, either from a UAV or field surveyed data, retain elevation values and integrate seamlessly into the merged scene. This allows a surveyor, for example, to collect point values from a ditch bottom that may be obscured by vegetation in the drone image and have the bottom points accurately represented in the topography.

Improved Drawing Tools – Users can now densify (drape) lines and boundaries to map current surface conditions. Individual vertices are now adjustable in all directions and exact X, Y and Z locations can be specified as well. Sub-surface modeling is now possible with these new improvements. Created features can then be exported to CAD for profile or alignment creation.

Extended Free Plan – Referred to as the Valley version, the free Virtual Surveyor suite has added functionality, including the ability to import photogrammetric data.

Improved Licensing – We better honor our principle: “The license follows the user”. With an improved licensing system based on a Virtual Surveyor Identity (email) the user will be able to work where he or she wants.

The firm is offering a free 14-day trial for Virtual Surveyor 6, which is distributed in Australia through Position Partners.

Source: spatialsource.com.au