Machine control, Takeoff and Drone Data Education and News

How to Use Drones in Your Earthmoving Business

Are you ready to take your earthmoving business to the next level? Join me at Trimble Dimensions 2024.

Zach Pieper

A gravel surface with mixed stone sizes shows a bright orange spray-painted dot marking a point on the ground. Grass borders the edge of the gravel area, and sunlight casts light shadows across the scene.

Ground Control - Principle 4

Ground control points put your drone data in the right location. Check shots are what prove it's actually accurate. Collect them between GCPs, at tie-ins and flowlines, and any critical elevation areas. Any check shot is better than none, and they add almost no time to your field work.

Zach Pieper

Ground Control - Principle 5

ALWAYS, and only, measure in your ground control with a rover that is fully calibrated to the site control for your GPS system.

Zach Pieper

An aerial image of a golf course hole shows a red boundary line outlining the mapped area across fairways, greens, and tree-lined sections. Red points labeled “GCP” are placed around the perimeter and along the corridor, while yellow points labeled “CK” are distributed within the interior for accuracy checks. Sand bunkers, cart paths, and water features are visible throughout the scene.

Ground Control - Principle 3

To start, place a GCP on roughly the highest and lowest spots on your project. Don't worry about...

Zach Pieper

An aerial map of an industrial site and surrounding farmland shows a red boundary line enclosing the project area. Red labeled points (GCP) are distributed around the perimeter and within the site, marking ground control points. Yellow labeled points (CK) are scattered throughout the interior, indicating check points for accuracy verification. The site includes a large central building, parking areas with vehicles, access roads, and adjacent fields.

Ground Control - Principle 2

Surrounding your site with ground control is the step that does most of the heavy lifting. Four to six GCPs placed near the outer boundary will box in your drone data and lock it to your machine control model. Here's how to lay them out for any site shape, road, or levee.

Zach Pieper

A construction worker wearing a high-visibility vest and winter clothing sets up a GPS surveying rover on a pole mounted over a ground control target in a dirt field. The worker is adjusting the equipment while standing on a marked square base, with partially built houses and clear sky in the background.

Ground Control - Principle 1

Where you place your ground control points matters as much as how you measure them. Overhead obstructions, grade changes, and bad surface choices can knock a GCP out of your data entirely. Here's what to look for before you set a target.

Zach Pieper

DJI Drone Camera Settings for Mapping and Survey

Quality pictures are required to get the best from your drone data. Here is a quick video showing you how to set up the camera on your DJI

Zach Pieper

American Flat Track

Machine control models aren't just for commercial projects. Quantum's experts improved a problem jump and fixed track drainage issu

Zach Pieper

Drone Surveying in Construction: Simple, Effective, and Cost-Efficient

Drones simplify construction surveying with just a GPS base/rover and a drone. Affordable, reliable data without the complexity.

Zach Pieper

Quantum Flight Pack - Flight Planning Video

Supplement your GPS machine control system with Quantum's Flight Pack drone system. In this video you will learn how to plan a topograp

Zach Pieper

Featured Posts

Infographic showing 4 GPS site control principles for machine control: use the design engineer's surveyor, surround the site with control points, calibrate to 5 or more points, and trust but verify with daily checks.

Get Your 3D Grading Under Control: 4 Site Control Principles Every GPS Contractor Needs to Know

Poor site control is the number one problem we see from contractors running GPS machine control. Not bad models or broken equipment. Site control, the first step on every single project. We've seen it cost contractors two weeks of production, turn a correct machine control model on a balanced site into a mysterious site export, and force concrete footings to be redone because the control was rotated 2.8 degrees. Every one of those situations was avoidable.

A screenshot from a drone flight planning interface titled “DJI Mavic 3E Flight Planning for Topographic Survey Mapping” shows a mapped area with a green grid overlay and waypoint markers on the left. On the right, advanced settings display sliders for side overlap ratio (80%), frontal overlap ratio (80%), and margin distance. A note emphasizes that 80% overlap provides good photogrammetry results and should not be set below 70% for 3D mapping. A YouTube play button is centered over the image.

Quantum Flight Pack - DJI Mavic 3E Training Hub

If you're running a DJI Mavic 3E on a construction site, this is where to start. These training videos cover flight planning, RTK setup, camera settings, and calibration — everything you need to get clean topo data that works with your GPS machine control system.