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Update: My crew had to pick between a drone survey and old-school total station for a site layout

The job was a tricky foundation for a house on a steep lot in Asheville. The drone company quoted $2,500 for a full topo map in a day, while my guy with the total station said he'd need three days and cost $1,800. I went with the drone, thinking the speed and 3D model would be worth it. The data was great, but we still had to go back and manually set a few key points the drone couldn't see under the tree canopy. Has anyone else run into this gap between the drone map and the actual physical stakes on the ground?
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3 Comments
daniela85
daniela858d ago
Yeah that canopy gap is a real headache, right? We ended up mixing both methods on a job last year, kind of like what @aaron880 might be getting at. The drone map gave us the big picture fast, then we just filled in the blind spots with the total station.
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kai_chen2
kai_chen28d ago
$2,500 for a drone survey and you still had to go out and set points by hand? That's rough.
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aaron880
aaron8808d ago
Did they even tell you that upfront?
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