Our Client
This project took us to a site just east of Melbourne. The client is one of the largest home builders in the state and engaged Aivia Group to provide geospatial data and deliverables that will assist them in the activities of their project, from project management to design visualization for marketing and sales to prospective buyers.
The Challenge
The project involved mapping a housing estate development where some stages had roads and utilities already completed and adjacent stages were still undergoing earthworks. The client wanted us to help them understand how aerial mapping using drones can assist their earthwork activities for this development and future projects.
Another objective was to capture 360 panoramas to supplement virtual tours of their range of house designs. Getting an exterior perspective of a building’s views at and above ground level before building commences.
One of the more experimental objectives was to prototype an interactive virtual walkthrough experience in unreal engine where potential home buyers could walk around a virtually true counterpart of their actual plot of land and visualise the house designs their looking at. This required a really high level of detail from ground perspective for the experience to feel natural realistic.
Our Solution
Aivia Group used our expertise and equipment to capture high-quality aerial and terrestrial imagery and video . We then processed this raw data into various geospatial products. If you would like more information about what each of these digital deliverables entail then read our visual guide to geospatial and related data. The deliverables included:
- Aerial Imagery
- Aerial Video
- Aerial Panoramas
- Terrestrial Imagery
- Terrestrial Video
- Terrestrial Panoramas
- Video Editing
- Ground Control and Checkpoints
- Orthoimagery
- Point Cloud
- Reality Mesh
- Digital Surface Model (Raster and Vector)
- Digital Terrain Model (Raster and Vector)
- Contour Model
- Development of Unreal Engine 5 renderings and interactive experience
These products provided the client with a comprehensive and true to life representation of the site and its surroundings, which can be used for various purposes, such as:
- Managing earthwork activities: The client can use the elevation modelling data to evaluate existing earthworks compared to design surfaces and to plan ongoing and future work.
- Planning and monitoring the construction activities and progress: The client can use the geospatial data to plan and coordinate the construction tasks and resources, and monitor the quality and safety of the work. The client can also use the geospatial data to compare the actual and expected outcomes, and identify any issues or deviations that need to be addressed.
- Communicating and collaborating with stakeholders and contractors: The client can use the geospatial data to share and exchange information with the stakeholders and contractors involved in the project, such as architects, engineers, builders, suppliers, regulators, etc. The client can also use the geospatial data to showcase and promote the project to potential guests, investors, partners, etc.
- The successful implementation of an interactive virtual experience prototype: The prototype of a virtual walkthrough was able to be achieved with real time dynamic lighting, reflection and refraction.
Outcome and Impact
By using drones for aerial mapping and reality modelling, Aivia Group was able to offer the client several benefits, such as:
- Saving time and money by reducing the need for ground survey work to be completed upfront: Aivia Group was able to capture and process large amounts of geospatial data in a short time span, using fewer resources and personnel than traditional methods and allowing other project activities to begin earlier with more detailed data. This resulted in lower costs and faster delivery times for the client. While licensed survey work may be needed in the future for boundary re-establishment or related work, the scope of such work can be more focused and no longer a dependency for many activities related to design and planning.
- Increasing safety by avoiding hazardous areas and minimizing human exposure: Aivia Group was able to map areas that were difficult or dangerous to access by ground, such as steep slopes, stockpiles, cliffs, watercourse, etc. This reduced the risk of accidents and injuries for the staff and contractors.
- Improving flexibility and quality of project management. The level of detail of site data that was captured has enabled for more project management activities to be completed remotely from the project managers office in Melbourne. This has significantly reduce onsite travel time and costs.
- Improved virtual tour experience: The clients existing virtual tours experiences can now be supplemented with true to life representation of the actual housing development for views representing all levels of a building.
- Driving innovation and further development of next generation interactive virtual tour experiences. The clients marketing strategy is now informed on the capabilities of interactive virtual experiences using aerial mapping and photogrammetry derived reality meshes and how these experiences can positively impact a potential homebuyers experience.
Assortment of Project Images
