Virtual
Surveyor has released Version 7.1 of its popular drone surveying software,
introducing functionality to efficiently calculate volumetrics in quarries,
mine pits, retention ponds, and other basins that fill with water. This new functionality
complements advanced cut-and-fill mapping capabilities unveiled in late 2019.
“Virtual
Surveyor is now the go-to package for managers of mines, drainage pits, and
stormwater retention basins,” said Tom Op ‘t Eyndt, CEO of Virtual Surveyor nv
in Belgium. “Volumetric calculations involving water bodies can be performed
much faster and more accurately.”
Virtual
Surveyor is popular among surveyors because it bridges the gap between UAV
photogrammetric processing applications and engineering design packages. The
software generates an interactive onscreen environment with UAV
orthophotos/DSMs and/or LiDAR point clouds where the surveyor selects survey
points and breaklines to define the topography, creating highly accurate
products up to five times faster than otherwise possible.
In
Version 7.1, the user may apply two new functions called Extract Level and
Create Water to delineate an entire water body and represent its surface as a
single elevation. Extracting the water level as a uniform flat surface from an
orthophotograph is difficult due to ‘noise’ inherent in the drone data set.
This process previously required the user to manually delineate the water
feature by selecting dozens of points around its perimeter.
The
Extract Level and Create Water functions are faster because delineating the
water feature can be accomplished with a single click on a point where the
water meets the edge of a basin, pond or quarry. This creates a perfectly flat
elevation for the water surface in the generated surface model.
“With
the water surface elevation precisely mapped, Virtual Surveyors can easily and
accurately apply volumetric calculations to determine how much more water the
feature can hold,” said Op ‘t Eyndt. “Even when no water is in the pond or
basin, this new functionality makes estimation of the retention scenarios a
much faster process.”
This new
capability builds on the cut-and-fill mapping enhancements added to Virtual
Surveyor last year, enabling users to quickly perform volume difference
calculations and generate cut-and-fill maps from drone images captured on two
or more different dates. Stormwater managers can use all these functions
together, for example, to determine how much sediment has been deposited in water
retention ponds.
New
Virtual Surveyor features are illustrated in this video: https://youtu.be/E9Paiwu6Rks.
Virtual
Surveyor users will find several other new or enhanced capabilities in Version
7.1:
Seamless Workflow to CAD – Virtual Surveyor has added the
JPEG2000 compression format in its export function to create a seamless and
efficient workflow to transfer orthophotos and other raster files directly to
popular CAD software packages.
Editing of Surfaces – Users may now create holes in
surfaces by applying a clip boundary and removing individual triangles to
exclude areas from volume calculations.
Australian Coordinate System – Virtual Surveyor 7.1 supports the
new GDA2020 coordinate system rolled out in Australia at the start of 2020.
“We have
improved the overall user experience in the newest version by adding several
simple commands so users can select multiple objects and vertices or group
lines into a single boundary with just a click or two of the mouse,” said Op ‘t
Eyndt.
Current
subscribers to Virtual Surveyor will see their software being updated to
Version 7.1 automatically. To start a free 14-day trial of Virtual Surveyor,
visit www.virtual-surveyor.com.
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