Stockpile volumes, measured off the flight.
Fly the pile instead of walking it. The photographs come back as millions of 3D points and a surface model carrying a height at every pixel, and the volume is taken on those. Every flight stays as its own dated record, so next month's is a comparison and not a fresh argument.
The pile does not hold still, and neither does the argument about it.
Nobody walks loose material
A rover survey means a person on a moving pile with a pole. A flight means a person on the ground with a controller. On most sites the safety case is what gets the job signed off, not the survey cost.
The whole pile, not a walked line
A traverse samples the shape along the path someone walked. A flight reconstructs every surface the camera saw, so the shape is measured rather than interpolated between points.
It is dated, and it keeps
Every flight is filed against the site with the day it ran. A year later the record still opens, still measures, and still shows what the pile looked like on the day somebody disagreed about it.
Five steps, and you only do the first two.
Fly the site and keep the overlap
You fly it, or your pilot does. The pipeline needs overlapping frames: each photograph has to share most of its view with the next one. JPEG or TIFF straight off the drone. DJI payload pairs, the _T and _W frames, are matched automatically.
Drag the folder into a browser
Nothing to install, no GPU of your own, no desktop licence. The upload is resumable, so a dropped connection does not cost you the flight. The server checks each file rather than guessing in the page.
Accept the fixed quote
The price appears before a single photograph is processed. Ignore it and nothing happens and nothing is charged.
The pipeline solves the cameras, then the geometry
It works out where every camera stood and where it was pointing, from the pictures alone, then matches detail across frames into millions of 3D points and finally a continuous textured surface. Every stage reports live with its own timing.
Open the results and take the files
The scene opens in the same browser. Measure in the viewer, or download all eight outputs and work in the tools you already run. A share link puts the job in front of a client with no login, for 7, 30 or 90 days.
Fly the pile from more than one side. Material the camera never saw is not reconstructed, and a pile flown from a single direction will be missing the far face. That is a flight-planning point, not a pipeline setting, which is why it is worth saying before you fly rather than after.
Three outputs carry the volume.
Dense point cloud
Millions of 3D points, the first output in the run with real geometry behind it. Distances, areas and volumes are taken on this, in our viewer or in your own software.
Digital surface model
A height at every pixel. This is the one that does cut and fill and month-on-month difference, and it drops straight into a GIS.
Textured mesh
The points turned into a continuous surface with the photographs wrapped onto it. Point-to-point measurement, CAD and viewers.
The other five outputs come with the same job: the orthomosaic, the Gaussian splat you fly through, the camera poses, the run log and a PDF report carrying the run, the numbers and the accuracy statement.
| Output | Format | What it is for | Measurable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dense point cloud | PLY / LAZ | Millions of 3D points. Distances, areas and volumes are taken on this. | yes |
| Textured mesh | OBJ / GLB / PLY | A continuous surface with the photographs on it, for measurement, CAD and viewers. | yes |
| Orthomosaic | GeoTIFF | The whole site flattened into one straight-down image, ready to drop into a GIS. | yes |
| Digital surface model | GeoTIFF | Height at every pixel. Contours, slopes, cut and fill. | yes |
| Gaussian splat | PLY / KSPLAT | The scene you fly through in a browser. Photoreal, and never measurable. | no |
| Camera poses | COLMAP | Where every photograph was taken from. Reprocess in your own tools whenever you want. | – |
| Run log | JSON | Every stage the pipeline ran, its timing and its settings. | – |
| Report | The run, the numbers and the accuracy statement in one document you can hand over. | – |
What one real flight produced.
Readings from a single flight run through the production pipeline. The 6.9 million points below are what a volume would be taken on: not a model of a pile, the pile itself as the camera found it.
Capacity today is about 1,200 photographs for the geometry lane and about 300 per Gaussian splat. A bigger flight is better split across more than one job, and we will say so when you send the frame count.
You see the price before anything runs.
Four mechanics, and they do not change from job to job.
A fixed quote first
The quote appears before a single photograph is processed. You accept it or you do not. Nothing starts on its own.
Charged on delivery
The job is billed when the files are delivered and verified. Not on upload, not on start, not on the attempt.
A failed run costs nothing
If the pipeline does not deliver, there is nothing to pay. The risk of a bad run sits with us.
No subscription
No monthly plan, no seat licence, no lock-in. You pay per job, and only for jobs that deliver.
The public price list is still being finalised, so per-job pricing is quoted by email in the meantime. Tell us the site, the drone and roughly how many photographs, and a fixed quote comes back. We would rather say that plainly than publish a number we intend to change.
What this does not claim.
- Scale is relative unless ground control is used. Without control points on the ground the reconstruction is proportionally correct, but it is not tied to real-world units and the sizes are unproven. If you need a number you can defend to a third party, tell us before you fly and we will tell you what that takes.
- A Gaussian splat is a picture, not a surface. Nothing on a splat is measurable. It is there to fly through and to show people. Every measurement comes off the mesh, the point cloud or the surface model, the outputs with real geometry behind them.
- There is no AI enhancement anywhere in the pipeline. Ask which pixels the camera saw and which a model imagined, and the answer is none of them. Every output is reconstructed from your photographs and nothing else. Where there were no photographs, the reconstruction shows nothing rather than inventing something.
- We do not publish a volume accuracy percentage. Not because we have not measured, but because a single number would be a lie about a figure that depends on your ground control and your flight coverage, not on our pipeline alone. We would rather tell you what drives it and let you decide than print a comfortable percentage you cannot hold us to.
- Helios does not fly your site. You supply the flight from your own drone or your own contractor. We are the reconstruction and delivery half of the job.
Asked before you ask.
How do you measure a stockpile volume with a drone?
The drone photographs the pile from enough angles that every surface appears in several overlapping frames. The pipeline solves where each camera was, rebuilds the pile as millions of 3D points, and turns those into a continuous surface and a digital surface model that carries a height at every pixel. The volume is the space between that surface and the base plane you choose. You take it in the browser viewer or in your own software, on the point cloud, the mesh or the surface model.
How accurate is a drone stockpile volume?
We will not publish a single accuracy percentage, because the honest answer depends on your flight and your ground control, not on our pipeline alone. Two things drive it. First, scale: without ground control points the reconstruction is proportionally correct but not tied to real-world units, so a volume off it is unproven and we will not present it as survey grade. With ground control the outputs carry a real coordinate system. Second, coverage: material the camera never saw is not reconstructed, and the underside of an overhang or the back of a pile flown from one side will not be there. Tell us before you fly if the volume has to stand up to a third party and we will tell you what that takes, or tell you we are not the right fit.
Can I compare this month's pile against last month's?
Yes, and that is the main reason sites fly twice. Each flight is filed against the same site in the platform, so a year of flights sits in one list with the day each one ran. Both runs produce a surface model on the same footprint, and the difference between two surface models is the change in material. Nothing is overwritten: every flight stays as its own dated record.
Do I have to walk on the pile?
No, and that is most of the point. A drone flight photographs the pile from the air, so nobody climbs loose material with a GPS rover to get a shot at the shape of it. The safety case is usually what gets these jobs approved rather than the survey cost.
What do I actually get back?
Eight files from one job: the dense point cloud and the textured mesh, which is what most people measure on, the digital surface model that carries a height at every pixel for cut and fill, a straight-down orthomosaic for the GIS, a Gaussian splat to fly through and show people, the camera poses, a run log and a PDF report carrying the run, the numbers and the accuracy statement. They are yours to download and keep in standard formats.
Can I send the result to a client or a buyer without giving them a login?
Yes. A share link opens the outputs, the numbers and the accuracy statement in any browser with no account to create, and you choose whether it lives for 7, 30 or 90 days.
Can I measure on the fly-through scene?
No, and this is the one thing worth being blunt about. The Gaussian splat is photoreal and it is the best thing to put in front of someone who was never on site, but it is a picture of the scene and not a surface. Nothing on it is measurable. Every volume comes off the point cloud, the mesh or the surface model.
The same flight, other jobs.
The general case: one flight, a measurable 3D record of the whole site.
ClusterConstruction progress monitoringThe same month-on-month comparison, pointed at what got built instead of what got moved.
ClusterPhotogrammetry servicesHow photographs become geometry, and where that geometry stops being trustworthy.
Send us a flight of the pile and we will send back a quote.
Tell us the site, the drone and roughly how many photographs. A fixed quote comes back before anything runs.
Email usinfo@eyonasoftware.co.za · Eyona Software Development (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town · Helios runs at helios.eyonasoftware.co.za