I am making some tests trying to discover the best software to calculate volume of the piles on our quarry.
Our quarry is on the side of a big hill, so the idealistic “pile over flat surface” is not an option.
Particularly problematic is one of our biggest piles, which is located over a 45º declivity, spilling on roughly flat areas on the top and bottom of that declivity.
Selecting the entire contour I get only 20k cubic meters. We know that result is not accurate. It should be larger.
I wonder if DroneDeploy somehow tries to create a base surface with those 2 flat areas connected by a 45º declivity? Or if it creates a SINGLE base plane, inclined, connecting the top to the bottom vertexes?
It would be REALLY HELPFUL if DroneDeploy showed the base surface it created, in 3D, so we could better understand how it is calculating that base surface, so we could better located the vertex points of even adjust the base surface.
Anyway, as the single polygon selection resulted in a volume quite smaller than expected, I tried to divide the same pile in 3 parts.
That is… a polygon for the bottom part, a polygon for the upper part and a polygon for the middle part, over the 45º incline.
Result was about 30k cubic meters. Close to our expectations But does it REALLY works separating a pile in 3 parts to calculate volume, or was it a fluke?
Additionally, we have some piles that are located under the gravel conveyor belts. Any tip on how to calculate those piles, considering the conveyor belts will be shown and calculated as solid objects that are quite taller than the pile?