Topographical surveys,
from the air and the ground.

A topographical survey is an accurate record of the shape and detail of a piece of land: levels, contours, physical boundaries, buildings, trees, street furniture and visible services, coordinated to a known grid. It is the base plan that architects, engineers and planners design on. Norelo captures topographical surveys by drone LiDAR, total station and laser scanning, with photogrammetry for hard surfaces, controlled by GNSS and surveyed ground control.

It depends on the site area, terrain, vegetation and the detail specified. Aerial capture changes the economics on larger sites, a day of LiDAR flying replaces weeks of ground crew time, so per-hectare costs fall sharply as sites grow. Send us the site boundary and we’ll return a fixed, itemised quote, usually within one working day. See our pricing approach.

Up to 200 hectares in a single day is achievable with the L2 or L3 payload on our Matrice aircraft, and multi-day programmes cover estates and corridors far beyond that. There’s no practical lower limit either, small plots simply get surveyed very quickly.

Yes. The DJI L2 and L3 are multi-return LiDAR sensors: each laser pulse can record several returns, so while the first bounces off the canopy, later returns reach the ground beneath. The cloud is then classified to separate vegetation from true ground, producing a bare-earth DTM even on sites too overgrown to walk or photograph.

Survey-grade. The aircraft flies with RTK positioning, the site is controlled by a GNSS base-and-rover network with surveyed ground control points, and the finished model is verified against independent checkpoints before drawing. Accuracy is agreed at the scoping stage and demonstrated in the deliverables, not assumed.

OSGB36 National Grid and Ordnance Datum by default, or your local site grid and datum if the project has one, agreed at the scoping stage so the survey drops straight into your design environment.

Yes. The survey doesn’t depend on the drone: inside flight restriction zones, dense urban centres, or wherever airspace, weather or the client rules flying out, we capture with the Leica TS16 total station and RTC360 laser scanner instead, to the same specification, control and deliverables. Many of our best surveys combine air and ground methods on one site.

Because each sensor has different strengths. LiDAR measures the ground superbly, including through vegetation, while photogrammetry resolves crisp visual detail on hard surfaces: kerb lines, road markings, ironwork and covers, and produces a true-colour orthophoto of the whole site. We fly both on the same visit and fuse the results into one dataset.

A layered CAD topographical drawing to your specification, DTM and DSM surfaces (LandXML for Civil 3D), contours at your interval, sections and profiles, a classified point cloud in LAS or E57, a scaled GeoTIFF orthophoto, and volume reports where required, all delivered through your secure Norelo portal.

It shows the physical boundaries that exist on the ground, fences, walls, hedges and kerb lines, accurately positioned on the grid. Legal title boundaries are a matter for the title plan and a boundary specialist, but our survey is exactly the accurate base that such an assessment is made against.

Capture is usually a single day on site. Processing, classification and drawing typically follow within one to two weeks depending on site size and the output set, we confirm the programme in your quote and publish data to the portal as it completes.

Yes, that’s where aerial capture shines. Carriageways, rail corridors, steep embankments, quarries and marsh are surveyed without anyone setting foot on them, with airspace and stakeholder permissions handled under our CAA Operational Authorisation as part of the job.