Nate Poole of Spalding DeDecker combined the TrueView 540 and TrueView GO to capture a complete, high-accuracy 3D map of a 17-acre park in record time.
Surveying and mapping teams want fast capture, solid accuracy, and complete context across every corner of a project. That is exactly what happens when you pair TrueView aerial LiDAR with the TrueView handheld Lidar/SLAM workflow. You get big-picture precision from the air and detail-rich coverage from the ground in a single, integrated dataset ready for design.
That approach came to life on a recent Spalding DeDecker project led by Nate Poole, CAD Manager. Spalding DeDecker is a consulting engineering, planning, and surveying firm serving clients across nearly all fifty states with offices in Detroit and Rochester Hills, Michigan. Their purpose is to create practical and sustainable infrastructure solutions, engineered with innovation, driven by experience, and delivered with integrity. This project shows how that purpose is supported by a combined TrueView workflow that delivers an efficient and complete survey of a complex site.
The challenge
The assignment sounded simple at first. Provide detailed grades in and around a park to diagnose drainage issues that were washing out part of a playground. The site covered about seventeen acres with a mix of asphalt, sidewalks, landscaped areas, and a play space. It also included the kinds of corners and canopy that can hide important details from a drone alone.
Nate recommended capturing the full site with a TrueView 540 on a drone and then scanning the playground paths and park features with the TrueView GO 132S. His goal was to see the accuracy from both systems when controlled and to prove the efficiency gains of pairing aerial and handheld collection on a real-world problem. As he put it, “We wanted to see what out of the box data sets we could get and what type of accuracy we could expect from both technologies when applying control.”
Why both aerial and handheld
Some sites are perfect for drone only collection. Others demand a ground level look. Many benefit from both. In Nate’s words, the TrueView 540 provided quick aerial coverage and engineering-grade precision across the open areas. At the same time, the TrueView GO lets the team “fill in gaps, capture detail under tree canopies, or scan areas that are inaccessible by drone.” He added, “There are multiple projects we do where using a drone just will not work due to clients or airspace restrictions; having the SLAM option in our toolbox is huge.”
There is also a practical reason to keep a powerful ground system in the kit. When flights are limited by airspace or schedules, crews can still capture critical data and maintain momentum.
The combined workflow
Nate processed the TrueView 540 flight and the TrueView GO walk separately inside the same LP360 project. He downloaded RINEX data from the nearest Michigan CORS station, then ran post-processing and smoothing on each point cloud. He made sure to walk over all control during the SLAM session, and he laid out photo control for the drone. The team balanced about thirty control points, then used roughly half of them to run LAS to Control on each cloud. The rest were held back as checks.
To combine sources, Nate tried two approaches. First, after getting control points in both clouds independently, he brought them into Cyclone 3DR, verified alignment with multiple slice views, and merged the sets. Second, he used the controlled drone cloud as the reference and performed LAS to LAS alignment, selecting common features as references and essentially matching the SLAM cloud to the aerial cloud. “I actually tried a couple different ways and I am undecided on which way I like better,” he said. “Both worked, and I will keep learning and refining what becomes our standard.”
LP360 in the middle
Nate describes himself as a beginner in LP360 and an intermediate user in Cyclone 3DR. Even so, he found LP360 straightforward. “Everything in LP360 seems to be pretty simple to use,” he said. “The program definitely has a function over form feel compared to more streamlined and simplified programs.”
Processing both datasets in one LP360 project, applying control, running post-processing and smoothing, and exporting to CAD all fit smoothly into his day-to-day workflow. “I spent about two hours or less actively in LP360 to do the work needed to both clouds,” Nate explained.
Speed, accuracy, and deliverables
This is where the combined approach shines. Field time was efficient, and the results were impressive. “We ended up spending no more than two and a half hours on site from start to finish,” Nate said. “It was a mind-bogglingly quick timeframe.”
Back at the office, the results measured up. “The efficiency of the deliverables, along with the accuracy, was stunningly good for what we needed,” he shared. The team had conventional topographic data from 2020 and also collected a small area for the current assignment. “The data from the SLAM and drone was scary accurate in almost every instance,” Nate said.
He then spent a few hours in Cyclone 3DR to build a ground mesh for visualization, classification, and exported a Land XML for CAD. “We came in under budget on the little half acre we needed to topo and got a full, very detailed topo and surface of the entire seventeen-acre site,” he said. The team also produced a clean ortho image for context.
The detail is what stood out. “We got a phenomenal amount of data,” Nate said. “It was very clean. Looking at the curbs and the subtle undulations in pavement, the clarity was excellent.” Coming from traditional scanning, he added, “I have dealt with high-end terrestrial scanners, but nothing in the LiDAR realm of drone or SLAM delivered this level of speed for this kind of site.”
A simple comparison with the old way
Before TrueView 540 and TrueView GO, a project like this would have meant a long day or more in the field and a real risk that some critical bit was missed. “We would have had at least a full day into it, between field and office,” Nate said. “With traditional topo, if you go out there and you do not capture something, your only option is to go back and re-capture.”
The combined workflow flips that story. The team captured the entire site with far more detail in roughly the same field time it once took to collect a fraction of the area. “Now we have a snapshot in time of exactly what the site conditions were,” Nate explained. “We can apply it to control whenever we want. It is basically like having Google Earth on steroids because you have everything geospatially accurate.”
Practical tips from the project
Plan control for both air and ground. Nate balanced about thirty points overall. He walked the SLAM sensor over control and spread targets for the drone flight. That mix gave him reliable control for LAS to Control on each dataset and independent checks across the site. “I used around fifteen of the thirty points to control each cloud and held the rest for checks,” he said.
Process each dataset cleanly before you combine. Running post-processing and smoothing on the aerial set and the handheld set in LP360 produced clean, stable clouds that aligned easily. “Once I had the raw clouds, I ran post-processing and smoothing on them both,” Nate noted.
Try more than one alignment method. Independent control and a merge work. LAS to LAS with the aerial cloud as a reference also works and can add confidence. “I brought both controlled clouds into Cyclone 3DR and merged them, and I also used LAS to LAS to re-control the SLAM cloud to the drone cloud,” he said.
Think like a designer. Even when the immediate deliverable is small, capturing the complete context gives engineers and clients a richer foundation for decisions. “This would have been a two-minute flight and a two-minute walk for only the small area,” Nate said. “Instead, we flew for eighteen minutes and walked for forty-five and got literally everything on the entire site.”
Keep imagery in the conversation. Nate is exploring the TrueView GO 360 Photo Kit option and LP360 immersive navigation to pair panoramic imagery with survey-grade point clouds. “It would be great to create a virtual walk-through with a survey-grade point cloud in the background,” he said. “That will make approvals and coordination even faster.”
Why TrueView
Selecting a platform that integrates hardware, software, support, and accuracy targets matters. “I started from square one and researched the whole environment,” Nate said. “I was looking for a place where we could get a sensor and the software and not be stuck in an open-source workflow that could not process the way we needed.” He evaluated multiple vendors and models. “GeoCue kept popping up as the number one go-to for software, hardware, and support,” he said. “I also like that the TrueView GO gives me GNSS outside, so the unit does not get lost. Being tied to only cloud processing models did not fit how we work.”
The bigger picture for Spalding DeDecker
This first production run with the TrueView 540 and TrueView GO combo impressed the team. The data volume, clarity of detail, speed of capture, and ease of processing in LP360 all point to a program that can scale. “My goal is to have this thing in the air three or four times a week. If we find ourselves needing it more often, we will get another payload and SLAM unit,” Nate said. “I think I have only hit the tip of the iceberg.”
Final takeaways
Pairing TrueView aerial LiDAR with TrueView handheld SLAM is a practical and proven way to capture more of a site in less time with confidence you can measure. On the park project, the team was on site for about two and a half hours, spent a few focused hours in LP360 and Cyclone 3DR, and delivered accurate topographic results along with a full site model. “I was pretty happy with the choices we made,” Nate said. “This shows we can do a full topo of everything on a seventeen-acre site in a very short timeframe and deliver the accuracy the design team needs.”
For firms like Spalding DeDecker that are committed to practical and sustainable infrastructure solutions, the combined TrueView approach checks every box. It is efficient. It is accurate. It is scalable. Most of all, it gives clients and project teams the complete picture so they can make the right call the first time. As Nate summed it up, “It is amazing what these new tools in our toolbox can do, and we are just getting started.”