point clouds · bare earth · canopy
Drone LiDAR Mapping
LiDAR sees what a camera cannot. Our drone-mounted scanners fire hundreds of thousands of pulses a second and reach the forest floor through gaps in the canopy — so you get the true ground surface where photogrammetry alone would fail.
Why LiDAR, in Hawaiʻi especially
Hawaiʻi's thick vegetation defeats imagery-only mapping — a camera can only record the top of the canopy. LiDAR pulses slip through to the ground, so the bare-earth model is accurate even under heavy forest. That makes it the right tool for drainage and grading design, trail and road planning, slope-stability and geohazard work, watershed and fuels analysis, and any project on steep, canopy-covered terrain.
Built for large, remote collections
We've flown LiDAR collections as large as 4,300 acres in a single project and processed them into clean, classified deliverables. Whether it's a few acres or a few thousand, every dataset is tied to documented ground control and delivered with an accuracy report you can stand behind.
What we deliver
- Classified LiDAR point cloud (LAS / LAZ)
- Bare-earth Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Digital Surface Model (DSM)
- Contours at your specified interval
- Canopy height models and vegetation-structure layers
- Accuracy report with ground-control validation
Frequently asked questions
What accuracy can drone LiDAR achieve?
With documented ground control, our LiDAR routinely reaches survey-grade, centimeter-level vertical accuracy. The exact figure depends on flight height, canopy, and the control we set — and we report it for every dataset.
Can LiDAR really see the ground under thick canopy?
Yes, and that is its biggest advantage in Hawaiʻi. Laser pulses reach the ground through small gaps in vegetation, so we can model bare earth where photogrammetry only sees the treetops.
What deliverable formats do you provide?
Classified point clouds in LAS/LAZ, terrain and surface models as GeoTIFF, contours as DWG/DXF or shapefile, and a PDF accuracy report. We match the formats your team already uses.
How large an area can you map?
Anywhere from a few acres to several thousand — we have delivered a single LiDAR collection over 4,300 acres. We scope each project to the site and your accuracy needs.
Related Hawaiʻi services
Have a Hawaiʻi project that needs precise geospatial data?
Tell us about your site and goals and we will recommend the right sensor, workflow, and deliverables.