Drone stockpile volume survey report app
Quarries, ports and bulk-handling sites survey stockpiles to reconcile stock against weighbridge records and to report inventory at month end. A drone gives the surface quickly, but the volume is only as good as the base surface assumed under each pile, the ground control, and the conversion to tonnes. SurveyThanks records each stockpile, its base assumption and its check shots on site, so the volume report states how every figure was reached.
Built for quarries running teams of roughly 3–50 inspectors.
Sample Volume report
An illustrative excerpt. The site, readings and findings are fictional; the layout is yours to set.
Volume report
Stockpile volumes — month end
- Site
- Fictional Quarry, product yard
- Flight date
- 31 August 2026
- Base surface
- Surveyed pad levels where available; otherwise toe triangulation
| Stockpile | Volume and basis | Status |
|---|---|---|
| SP1 — 20 mm aggregate | 4,210 m³, surveyed pad base | Status: Pass |
| SP2 — road base | 6,880 m³, toe triangulation | Status: Base assumed |
| SP3 — crusher dust | 1,150 m³, partly under conveyor | Status: Occluded |
| GNSS check shots on SP1 | 6 shots, within 0.04 m of surface | Status: Pass |
Fields captured on site
Your firm builds the form in-app, so these are a starting point rather than a fixed schema. Every field is captured on the device, with or without signal, and lands in the volume report where your template puts it.
Flight
- Remote pilot and aircraft
- Flight height
- Ground control and check shots
Per stockpile
- Stockpile ID (from the stockpile register)
- Material
- Base surface method
- Volume (m³)
- Bulk density factor
- Tonnes (calculated)
- Photo
Limitations
- Occluded areas
- Stockpiles being worked during flight
Standards the report works to
- CASA Part 101Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998 — Part 101, Unmanned aircraft and rockets
- The operating rules for the flight, with the pilot’s licence and the operator recorded on the job.
Load the standards you hold into your reference library and the drafted prose is written against them rather than against a general model.
How the volume report gets built
Capture it once, offline
Your firm builds the volumetric drone survey form in-app — 25 field types, nesting repeatable groups, compound AND/OR visibility rules, reusable modules and calculated fields. Field capture works with no signal: jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio all queue in an idempotent outbox that only clears once the server confirms receipt.
Link it to your marks, stations and monitoring points
Enter marks, stations and monitoring points once, as a register. Every one of your observations, rounds and movement readings then points at a stored row rather than a name somebody typed — and the links survive a disconnected device.
Render your own template
The volume report renders into the Word template you already use — your letterhead, your section order, your clause library — with conditionals, loops over repeats, composable sub-templates and photo grids.
Reviewed before it leaves
You write the review framework: a checklist of what a volume report must contain, plus the prose standards you would mark a junior against. Link it to a report template and it runs every time that template renders. Each finding comes back graded info, minor or major, quoting the sentence at fault, and a person accepts or dismisses every one.
Because the structured submission behind the report is held too, the review is a comparison rather than a proofread: The movement summary reports 4 mm at PM3; the round’s readings put it at 11 mm.
Checks a surveying framework usually carries
- Control, datum and epoch are stated for every deliverable
- Quoted tolerances match the project specification being reported against
- Every mark named in the text exists in the register
- Assumptions and sources of error are recorded rather than assumed
Questions
- Can the report convert volumes to tonnes for us?
- Yes. A calculated field multiplies each stockpile’s volume by its bulk density factor, and an aggregate over the stockpile group gives the yard total.
- Can we compare this month’s stockpiles against last month’s?
- Stockpiles are a register, so each month’s survey links to the same pile and the report can show the change since the previous survey.
- Is this only for drone surveys?
- No. The same form works for stockpiles picked up by GNSS rover or terrestrial scanner; the method is a field on each stockpile and the report states it.
- Does SurveyThanks compute the volume from the drone data?
- No. The surface and volume are computed in your photogrammetry or survey software. SurveyThanks records the figures, assumptions and checks, and renders the report.
What this is not
Worth knowing before you book a demo, so neither of us wastes the half hour.
- Not field-service dispatch. No timesheets, no parts, no inventory. Scheduling exists to get an inspector to a site.
- No signature capture. If your deliverable has to carry a signed sign-off on the artefact itself, this is not the tool yet.
- Field capture is what works offline — jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio. Reports, chat, scheduling and the inbox need a connection.
- No client portal. Reports go out as a file or a password-protected link.
Other surveying work we cover
- Deformation monitoring roundsMovement monitoring report
- GPR survey recordsGPR survey report
- Laser scan site capturesPoint cloud delivery report
- Mine survey pickupsMine survey report
- Strata plan field verificationStrata plan report
- Utility locating recordsLocate mark-up report
- Aerial mapping missionsMapping deliverable report
- As-built verification surveysAs-built report
Other disciplines
Rebuild your volume report in SurveyThanks
Bring the Word template you already send clients. If you are coming off another field-forms tool, a filled report can be uploaded, read field by field, and re-rendered into your template.