Kahuto Pacific was fortunate to be contracted by the Fiji Housing Authority to take part in revolutionizing the intended Waila area by providing detailed topographical maps of the site. A destined 340Ha of densely vegetated forest, farmland with hilly terrain throughout, and swamp zones to be converted into the next housing area to accommodate 20,000 people.

Project Snapshot

Project Scope

With an essential project like this, accuracy was paramount. Making sure all LiDAR and Photogrammetry data acquisition process was right from the start. With correct mission planning, flight overlaps, GCP and Grid placements, regular weather conditions check ups, to the best machine processing and delivering CAD ready outputs to meet the need of the client. To aid its engineers, architects and planners with well informed terrain and surface information. To better help plan roads, drainages, powerlines and subdivisions.

Solution

As the site was around 340Ha, our drone pilots divided fights accordingly and ensured the area of interest had enough overlap plus control marks into each other to help stitch and tie in point cloud data as well. As it was mostly vegetated and swampy terrain we flew well into nearby surrounding suburbs to have good and correct surface values. So eventually flew more than required, however was crucial for high quality data results.

Challenges

It was definitely quite the trek and hike for the team, having to move around a lot, setup fly one location, pack up move to the next. Not to mention the frequent gusts of wind and rain popping out of nowhere. Another hurdle was locals passing by and pulling off our Ground control tiles laid throughout the site. Which required our surveyors coming back in to spray marks and relay tiles, and pretty much a race against time before another on passer moves the tiles around. 

Results