RICS-Compliant Measured Surveys

Measured Building Surveys.

Combined aerial drone capture and ground-based laser scanning, delivered to RICS measured-survey standards. You receive fully-drafted 2D floor plans, elevations, and sections in DWG or RVT — ready for your architect, engineer, or planning application.

“Every drone pilot on this network is personally vetted by me — insurance, qualifications, flight history.”

Peter Leslie · Founder & GVC Drone Pilot

Trusted by site managers & agencies across the UK

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Hand-measured surveys belong in the 1990s.

Architects and QS teams still routinely receive measured surveys that miss roof geometry, skew on elevations, and arrive weeks late. Combined aerial and ground capture fixes all three.

Missing Roof & High-Level Detail

A ground-only surveyor guesses at ridge heights, chimney positions, and parapet offsets. Drone capture gives a measurable model of every roof plane — essential for planning applications and rooftop alterations.

Elevation Drawings That Don't Line Up

Hand-measured elevations often drift by 50–100mm over a facade. Photogrammetric orthographic views are dimensionally correct to millimetre tolerances, so your architect doesn't spend half the fee re-measuring.

Listed & Complex Geometry

Heritage work demands documentation a tape measure cannot produce — curved masonry, bay windows, oriels, decorative parapets. A combined drone and scanner workflow captures all of it in a single site visit.

A measured survey isn't a drawing exercise. It's a legal record.

By Peter Leslie, Founder & GVC Drone Pilot

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Your measured building survey is what the architect, structural engineer, party-wall surveyor, and planning officer will all base their work on. Any error you accept here is an error that propagates through every drawing, cost plan, and build decision downstream.

That's why we only match this type of work with drone operators who pair their CAA OA with a ground survey partner running a Leica or Trimble scanner. The drone picks up the roof and the high-level facade, the scanner handles the interior. Both datasets get registered together in Revit or AutoCAD.

The outputs conform to RICS measured-survey Band C or better, and every drawing references the control network used to capture it.

RICS-Aligned Outputs

Drone + Laser Scanner Teams

Deliverables your design team can draw into.

Every measured survey comes back as native CAD or Revit files, not just PDFs.

2D Floor Plans

Fully-drafted floor plans for every level in DWG, layered per the client's CAD standard. Room labels, window and door schedules, and floor-to-ceiling heights included as standard.

Elevations & Sections

Dimensionally-correct elevations and cross-sections cut from the registered point cloud. Delivered in DWG with true heights, eaves, and ridge lines that stand up to planning-officer scrutiny.

Revit (RVT) Model

Optional native Revit model at LOD 200 or 300, ready for your architect to extend into design. Walls, floors, roofs, doors, and windows modelled as parametric families, not dumb lines.

From brief to drawings in 3 steps.

One site visit, one combined dataset, one coherent set of drawings.

Define the Scope

Confirm the building, the gross floor area, the level of detail (RICS Band), and whether you need 2D CAD, Revit, or both. We translate this into a tight brief.

Combined Site Capture

The matched team flies the exterior and scans the interior in a single coordinated visit. Ground control and scan registration are agreed on-site.

Drafted Drawings

CAD technicians draft the deliverables from the registered dataset, QA to RICS tolerances, and issue DWG and RVT files within an agreed turnaround.

Start Your Project Brief

Architects who stopped re-measuring on site.

Practices, conservation architects, and developers relying on combined aerial-plus-scan measured surveys.

"The RVT model landed at LOD 300 with roof, parapets and chimney stacks already modelled. We barely had to touch it before starting design. Shaved three weeks off the concept stage."

Daniel H.

Senior Architect, Cambridge

"We needed a Grade II coaching inn measured for a listed-building consent. The combined drone and scanner approach captured every decorative parapet detail our conservation officer wanted to see. She approved the submission first round."

Sarah B.

Conservation Architect, Bath

"Previous surveyor skipped the roof and drew it from Google Maps. Rebooked through this platform and the ridge heights came back correct to a few millimetres. Our structural engineer was very pleased."

Niamh F.

Project Architect, Belfast

Measured Building Survey FAQ

Accuracy, interiors, and listed-building protocols — answered.

What accuracy can I expect, and does it meet RICS standards?

The combined drone-and-laser workflow routinely delivers plan accuracy of ±10–20mm and elevation accuracy of ±15–25mm — comfortably within RICS Band C and often inside Band B. Tighter tolerances can be specified for heritage or engineering work using additional ground control.

How do you capture the interior if the drone only flies outside?

The matched team pairs the drone pilot with a ground surveyor running a terrestrial laser scanner (Leica RTC360, Trimble X7, or similar). Interior scans and exterior photogrammetry are tied to the same control network so the final model reads as a single coherent dataset.

Can you work on listed buildings and heritage sites?

Yes — many of our matched drone operators specialise in heritage work and can produce outputs to Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland, or Cadw protocols. Non-contact capture is a significant advantage over tape-and-tripod methods, especially on fragile masonry and decorative plasterwork.

What's the typical turnaround for a completed drawing set?

Site capture takes a single day for buildings up to around 1,500sqm. CAD drafting takes 2–3 weeks for a full 2D set, or 3–4 weeks if a Revit model is also required. Urgent projects can often be fast-tracked for an uplift — ask in your brief.