Land development runs on two things that are hard to get at the same time: an accurate picture of the dirt, and a persuasive picture of the place. A single aerial visit produces both. UAV Imaging flies for Alberta developers, landowners, commercial property owners and brokerage teams, from a raw parcel being evaluated through servicing and construction to a finished asset being leased or sold.
The technical work here is the same work we do on any site. What differs is the audience, because a development file is read by a municipality, a lender, a buyer and a project team, and each of them wants something different out of the same flight.
What we fly
Pre-purchase and site selection imagery
Current, high-resolution imagery and a terrain surface over a parcel before it is committed to. What is actually on the ground, where it drains, where the access is, what the neighbouring land use looks like, what is already disturbed and what the site looks like in context. Historical and public imagery is frequently years out of date on land that has changed, and a due diligence decision made on an old image is a decision made on an old site.
Earthworks quantities and grading
A terrain model over the existing surface supports cut and fill against a proposed design, stripping volumes, and progress quantities as the dirt moves. Where payment runs off measured material, the same method used for stockpile measurement applies to a development pad, measured against a defined base surface with an accuracy report attached.
Subdivision and servicing progress
Repeat capture through servicing and construction: a dated, georeferenced record of roads, underground, lots, grading, landscaping and building progress across a whole phase in one visit. This is the deliverable that answers the question of what the site looked like on a given date, which turns out to matter for billing, for a progress claim and for a dispute nobody expected. The progress capture argument for contractors applies to developers with more force, because a developer is carrying the phase across a longer timeline.
Marketing, leasing and listing aerials
Stills and video for a land offering, a lease package, a listing or an investor update, including context shots that show access, corridors, adjacency and surrounding development. These are usually captured on the same mobilisation as technical work, which is worth knowing because it is one visit and two budget lines. Where a development is being sold on its location, the aerial context shot is doing most of the work a site plan cannot.
Existing building and asset condition
Roof condition, parking and paving condition, envelope, rooftop equipment and site drainage on an existing commercial property, captured without a lift and without sending a person up. Useful during acquisition due diligence, before a capital plan, and in support of a claim. Thermal capture is a separate scope with real conditions attached, covered in thermal versus visual roof inspection.
As-built and handover records
A capture at substantial completion produces a measured, dated record of the finished site as it actually was, which is the document people want years later when the paper record disagrees with the ground.
Common deliverables
- Georeferenced, measurable orthomosaic of the parcel or phase
- Digital surface model, contours and terrain products for grading and drainage
- Cut and fill or stripping volumes against a defined base surface, with an accuracy report
- Repeat-cycle progress captures flown to a consistent reference so dates are comparable
- Oblique context imagery for planning submissions, lender packages and marketing
- Edited stills and video for listings, lease packages and investor updates
- Roof, paving and rooftop equipment condition imagery on existing assets
- Dated as-built capture at completion
What aerial capture does not do here
- It is not a legal survey. Boundaries, easements, rights of way and anything requiring an Alberta Land Surveyor's stamp stay with a land surveyor. An orthomosaic is measurable and is not a plan of survey. See who signs off drone survey data.
- It does not see below grade. Existing buried services, soil conditions and contamination require locates, geotechnical work and records.
- It does not see under water or, reliably, under canopy. Wet areas and treed parcels have known limits, set out in what a drone survey cannot tell you.
- It is not a planning or engineering opinion. We produce measured data and imagery; the planning, civil and geotechnical judgements stay with your consultants.
- Urban airspace is a real constraint. Infill and downtown sites often sit in controlled airspace or near an aerodrome, which is an authorisation question handled at scoping rather than on the morning of a flight. Our airspace explainer covers what that involves.
How the work runs
For a single parcel, a flight and the deliverable is usually a short, self-contained job scoped off a legal description or a boundary file. For a phase under construction, the useful arrangement is a repeat cycle agreed at the start, flown at the same reference each visit so the captures are genuinely comparable, which is where the record becomes evidence rather than a set of nice pictures.
Crews work out of Edmonton with routine coverage of the Edmonton and Calgary regions and the corridor between, including the Parkland County and Fort Saskatchewan development areas. Everything is flown under a Transport Canada RPAS certificate appropriate to the operation and carries liability insurance; the 2026 Alberta RPAS compliance guide sets out what a buyer should expect to be shown.
Getting started
Send the parcel or phase, what the data has to support, and the timeline. We will come back with what is flyable, what the airspace over that ground requires, and what it produces.