Case Study: GeoDrone Survey Ltd documents Saharan archaeological sites with Pix4Dmapper

Documenting archaeological sites with drone mapping

GeoDrone Survey Ltd was commissioned by Leicester University to support the Trans-Sahara Project, surveying multiple archaeological sites in Morocco’s Zagora province. The challenge was to collect high-resolution aerial imagery and build accurate macro-scale Structure from Motion (SfM) models of heritage sites across a heavily regulated UAS environment. Pix4D provided the photogrammetry workflow through Pix4Dmapper.

Using a DJI Inspire V 1.0, GCPs, Leica D-GNSS, and custom flight planning, GeoDrone processed 4,700 images covering more than 90 km and seven sites in Pix4Dmapper. Pix4D enabled the team to produce 3D textured meshes, point clouds, DSMs, DTMs, orthomosaics, contour lines, and fly-through videos with accuracy better than 5 cm, while also speeding up delivery through custom processing templates and automatic GCP marking.

GeoDrone Survey Ltd