What RTK actually means for your drone map
Plenty of drones can take pictures of a job site. Far fewer can tell you, to the centimeter, where each picture was taken. That difference is RTK, and it is the reason a map is either something your engineer can use or something that just looks nice.
A drone map is built from hundreds or thousands of overlapping photos. Software matches features between the photos and reconstructs the ground as a surface and an orthomosaic. The accuracy of that result depends on how well the software knows where each photo was taken.
Consumer GPS versus RTK
A standard drone records a GPS position for each photo that is accurate to a couple of meters. That is fine for a pretty picture. It is not fine for measuring a stockpile, checking grade against plan or comparing this month to last month.
RTK, real-time kinematic positioning, corrects the drone’s position in flight using a base station or a correction network. The result is a position for each photo that is accurate to a centimeter or two. When the software builds the map, it starts from truth instead of from a guess.
Where ground control still matters
RTK gets the whole map close. Ground control points, surveyed targets placed on the site, prove it. On projects where the data supports a design decision or an earthwork payment, we set control and report the residuals so you can see the accuracy, not just take our word for it.
What you get
- GeoTIFF orthomosaic in your coordinate system
- Digital surface model and digital terrain model
- Contours as DXF or shapefile
- Point cloud as LAS or LAZ
- Volume report as PDF and CSV
- Accuracy report
One note on boundaries: drone mapping is not a legal survey. Property lines and recorded plats are the work of a licensed land surveyor, and we are happy to work alongside yours.
