Drone mapping services in Bridgwater

Bridgwater has more heavy earthworks and industrial development around it than anywhere else in this coverage area. Distribution sheds, energy infrastructure, associated development and the ground being prepared for all of it involve moving material at a scale where a measured quantity is worth real money.

That is the strongest possible case for repeat aerial capture. A platform flown monthly through a cut and fill operation gives a running volume, taken without anybody standing in a haul route, and processed the same way each time so the numbers are comparable rather than merely similar.

The construction site on the coast north of the town carries an airspace restriction of its own, and the associated development spread around the district means a survey site here can sit closer to it than a client expects. That gets checked against the specific location before a date is agreed.

It is a straightforward check, and the point of doing it early is that some plots will simply be refused. Knowing that in the first phone call is more useful than finding out from a cancelled visit.

The land north and west of the town is drained levels: flat, low, criss-crossed with rhynes and ditches, and sitting close to the water table. For mapping this is both the easiest and the hardest ground in the region. Easy because it is flat and open with clean sight lines. Hard because water is everywhere and water returns nothing.

A rhyne shows in an orthomosaic as a dark line and in a terrain model as a gap, so drainage features on levels sites are usually traced from the image rather than measured from the surface, and the note explains which of the two was done.

The Parrett runs through the town and is tidal, with a large range and heavy silt. Anything on the riverbank is timed to low water, and the mud itself is a poor photogrammetric subject: wet, uniform and low contrast, so it produces noisier surfaces than dry ground does.

Bridgwater is about an hour and ten minutes from base up the M5, which makes it a planned day and a natural pairing with Taunton work.

The old docks and the ground along the Parrett are a mixture of industrial land, water and heritage structure, which makes for interesting flying and a slightly awkward dataset: hard edges next to open water, with the water contributing nothing.

Inland, the town's Victorian brick terraces and its very large post-war estates are being added to at pace, driven by the workforce the coastal construction project brings. Development at that rate is the classic case for repeat capture, because the thing clients most often want to establish later is what existed on a given date.

Brick and clay tile are good photogrammetric subjects, textured and matt, so the built parts of a Bridgwater survey generally come out cleaner than the wet ground around them.