Civil engineer client wants 1-foot contours from our drone survey of a 40-acre greenfield site. Currently processing in Pix4D and exporting to DXF.
The raw contours are noisy as expected. What's your process for smoothing? Do you clean up in CAD or is there a better approach in the processing software?
Also, for those delivering to engineers - what format do they typically want? DXF, SHP, GeoTIFF of the DTM?
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Sign inExport the DTM as a TIN surface to Civil3D, then generate contours there. You get much better control over smoothing and you can classify/edit the surface before contouring.
Never deliver raw photogrammetric contours - they always look bad. A little surface cleanup goes a long way.
Most of our engineer clients want the LAS point cloud, a GeoTIFF DTM, and contours in DXF format referenced to state plane coordinates. Some want Leica Cyclone compatible formats.
For 1-foot contours on a 40-acre site, make sure your GSD is 1.5" or better. Otherwise the contours won't be meaningful.