Frequently Asked Questions

General

Goodland Surveys Pvt Ltd is an engineering survey company based in Chennai, delivering Mobile LiDAR, Drone LiDAR, drone photogrammetry, DGPS/Total Station, GPR utility mapping and bathymetric survey services for highways, railways, metro rail, city planning, industrial land and irrigation projects across India.

Our team brings together more than 20 years of combined surveying and mapping experience, working with government agencies, consulting engineers, contractors and construction companies.

We work pan-India, including the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and have completed assignments in Addu (Maldives), Gabon, Brisbane (Australia) and the Gulf. We also take on LiDAR data post-processing work sent to us from overseas teams.

Consulting engineers and contractors such as AECOM, L&T, WSP, SMEC and Systra, alongside government bodies including Southern Railways, CPWD, PWD Tamil Nadu and various port and water board authorities. See our full Clients page for details.

We run every major survey technology in-house — Mobile LiDAR, Drone LiDAR, drone photogrammetry, DGPS/Total Station, GPR and bathymetry — rather than subcontracting specialist work, which keeps data consistent and turnaround fast across multi-technology projects.

Use the contact form on our Contact Us page, or call/WhatsApp us directly. For linear projects, sending your area of interest as a KML file along with your survey specification lets us return a free quotation quickly.

LiDAR Survey

LiDAR — Light Detection and Ranging — fires pulsed laser light at a surface and times how long each pulse takes to bounce back. Millions of these returns per second build up into a dense "point cloud" that maps the surveyed area in three dimensions.

A point cloud is the raw output of a LiDAR scan — millions of individual XYZ coordinates, one for every surface the laser touched. Once cleaned and classified, it becomes a detailed digital model of the site.

Mobile LiDAR is vehicle, rail or boat-mounted and scans close to the ground, which suits highway and railway corridors well. Drone LiDAR flies over terrain a vehicle cannot reach — forests, hill sections, marshland — making it the better fit for green-field alignments and hard-to-access sites.

Handheld LiDAR is a SLAM-based scanner carried by an operator, ideal for interior spaces, factories and heritage structures where a vehicle or drone cannot go and conventional measurement would be too slow or disruptive.

Our Mobile LiDAR platform is capable of survey-grade, centimetre-level accuracy when tied to proper ground control. Accuracy depends on the platform, ground control density and processing workflow used for a given project.

Pricing depends on scope, required accuracy, project size, location and deliverables — typically between ₹1,000 and ₹12,000 per acre. Send us your area of interest and specification for a free quotation.

Point cloud data is typically delivered in LAS/LAZ format, with CAD drawings in DWG/DXF and topographic outputs compatible with AutoCAD, Civil 3D and ArcGIS.

Drone Survey & Photogrammetry

Drone photogrammetry captures overlapping aerial photographs and processes them into a geo-referenced orthomosaic image and a 3D surface model, accurate enough to measure distances and areas directly from it.

RTK corrects the drone's position live during flight using a real-time radio link to a base station. PPK collects raw GNSS observations from both the drone and a static base station, then reconciles them afterward in post-processing — often more robust in areas with unreliable radio signal.

We still recommend one or two Ground Control Points plus independent checkpoints even with RTK/PPK equipment, purely to validate absolute accuracy before a survey is signed off.

An orthomosaic is a single, seamless, geo-referenced aerial image stitched from many overlapping drone photographs, corrected for lens distortion and terrain displacement so that measurements taken from it are accurate.

Topographic mapping, volume calculations, orthomosaic base maps, DEM/DSM generation, contour production and CAD-ready topographic drawings for highways, energy corridors, city planning and industrial land.

DGPS, Total Station & Engineering Survey

Differential GPS (DGPS) fixes a point's precise position by relating it to a known control point. In Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) mode, that correction happens live in the field rather than in post-processing.

Total Stations are used where GPS signal is obstructed — dense urban areas, under structures, indoors — or where the project needs the very fine local accuracy a Total Station traverse provides.

A topographic survey records the X, Y and Z position of every relevant ground feature against a reference system, producing a digital terrain model used for design, planning and construction documentation.

It is the first step of any engineering survey — establishing a network of fixed reference points across a site, from which all subsequent measurements are tied, ensuring the whole survey sits on one consistent coordinate system.

Yes — ground control and Total Station/DGPS work is often used to validate and tie down LiDAR and drone photogrammetry data on the same project, which is standard practice on our larger corridor surveys.

GPR & Underground Utility Survey

GPR transmits radio waves into the ground and reads what bounces back, building a picture of buried pipes, cables and utilities without any excavation.

Water mains, gas lines, communication cables, sewer pipes, and both metallic and non-metallic utilities including plastic pipe and concrete structures.

Typically up to about 20 feet, though the actual depth depends heavily on soil conditions — dry, sandy soils allow deeper, clearer penetration than dense clay or moist ground.

GPR is non-invasive, faster, and removes the risk of an exploratory dig striking a live utility — a single strike can halt a project and damage infrastructure.

Bathymetry & Hydrographic Survey

Bathymetry measures underwater depth in rivers, lakes or oceans using an echo sounder, producing a map of the underwater landscape — the wet-side equivalent of a land topographic survey.

A Teledyne Odom Echotrac E20 single-beam echo sounder integrated with DGPS positioning, mounted on a survey vessel.

For navigation safety, dredging planning, marine and port construction, bridge and waterway crossings, and environmental monitoring of riverbeds and coastlines.

Process, Deliverables & Careers

Turnaround depends on project size and technology used — Mobile LiDAR in particular can cover in hours what a conventional survey crew would take weeks to complete on foot. We confirm a specific timeline as part of every proposal.

Depending on the service, deliverables typically include point cloud data (LAS/LAZ), CAD drawings (DWG/DXF), orthomosaic imagery, DEM/DSM models, contour maps, and a written survey report with methodology and accuracy statement.

Yes — we work with government agencies (Railways, CPWD, PWD, port trusts) as well as private consulting engineers, contractors and developers.

We post current openings on our Jobs page — check there for live vacancies and to submit an application with your résumé.

Our Blog covers project updates and technology notes, and our Gallery shares photos from recent field surveys — both are linked under the Media menu.