What open-pit mines, quarries and sand and gravel pits actually fly drones for, and how Omniris turns those flights into stockpile tonnage, volume change between surveys, slope and drainage maps and CAD surfaces, each with a record of how the number was made.
The United States produced about 1.65 billion US tons (an estimated 1.5 billion metric tons) of crushed stone in 2025 from an estimated 3,500 quarries, and about 960 million US tons (an estimated 870 million metric tons) of construction sand and gravel from an estimated 6,500 pits [1][2]. Every one of those operations has to know how much material is sitting in its stockpiles, how much it has dug, whether its walls and roads are safe, and whether the land it disturbs is being put back as its permit requires. Drones are now used for all of these: a review of published research on drones in mining found them used for topographic surveying, rock slope analysis, and monitoring of water and ecological restoration [3].
Omniris is a drone operations platform and a secure evidence vault. For a mine or quarry it does five jobs:
Draw a pile's boundary once, attach it to the site, and Omniris measures it on every survey of that site you stitch from then on: volume with its ± uncertainty, tonnage from a density you choose, and the history as a chart, a printable report and a spreadsheet.
Compare two flights over a pit, a pile or the whole site: material added and removed, a red and blue change map, and a grade for how well the two flights line up. Change alerts email you when a new flight crosses your threshold.
Contours, slope in percent grade, aspect, ponding (where water will stand, how deep and how much) and drainage flow lines, from the survey's full-resolution terrain model.
Measure against a design surface, and export contours and surfaces as DXF or LandXML in your State Plane zone, with the datum shift and vertical datum stated.
Measurements, design files and maps carry a tamper-evident custody record, so a year-end inventory figure can be traced to the flight, the boundary, the base and the person who computed it.
The sections below go mission by mission: what mines and quarries fly, what Omniris delivers for each, and how every number is made and recorded.
A systematic review of 65 published studies of drones in mining, from exploration to reclamation, found them used for geological and structural analysis, aerial geophysical survey, topographic surveying, rock slope analysis, working-environment analysis, underground surveying, and monitoring of soil, water, ecological restoration and ground subsidence [3]. Published comparisons of drone surveys at quarries and aggregate sites, such as [6] and [8], focus on stockpile volume. This section goes through each mission: what is flown, how often, what the buyer expects to receive, and which rules apply.
| Mission | Typical cadence | Deliverable the buyer expects | What governs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stockpile inventory | Set by the site's own inventory and accounting cycle; a drone survey of a pile takes less time than a traditional one [6] | Volume and tonnage per pile, history over time, figures for month-end and year-end inventory | The company's own inventory and accounting process |
| Pit, bench and face surveys | With each inventory flight, or as mining advances | Topography, contours, mined volume between surveys, as-mined against plan | Bench width and height tied to the equipment used (30 CFR 56.3130) [9]; the mine plan |
| Highwall and slope checks | Highwalls and banks beside travelways examined weekly, or more often as conditions change (30 CFR 56.3401) [12] | Visual record, change in the face and the benches below it, areas to scale or barricade | 30 CFR 56.3130, 56.3131, 56.3200, 56.3401 [9][10][11][12] |
| Haul roads and dump points | As roads are built and moved | Road grade, cross slope, drainage, berm height along drop-offs | Berms at least mid-axle height of the largest self-propelled equipment that usually travels the road (30 CFR 56.9300) [13]; dump-point restraints (56.9301) [14] |
| Water, drainage and impoundments | Coal-mine impoundments that meet MSHA's size or hazard criteria examined at intervals not exceeding 7 days, unless the District Manager approves otherwise (30 CFR 77.216-3) [17]; at metal and non-metal mines, retaining dams whose failure would create a hazard "inspected at regular intervals" (56.20010) [16] | Where water collects and flows, embankment condition, change in the facility | 30 CFR 77.216-3 and 56.20010; for tailings, the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management [18] |
| Reclamation and permit compliance | Through regrading and the revegetation responsibility period (5 or 10 years for coal) [21] | Regraded surface against the approved contour, slopes, revegetated area | For coal: 30 CFR 816.102 (backfilling and grading) and 816.116 (revegetation success) [20][21]; other mines: state reclamation programmes |
| Blast planning and review | Before and after each shot | 3D profile of the face, burden at each hole, muckpile and fragmentation | The blast plan and the air blast levels the site has to manage [22] |
Stockpile volume is the subject of the published drone comparisons at quarries and aggregate sites cited here [6][8]. Each survey gives a volume for every pile, and how often a site flies is set by its own inventory and accounting cycle. A drone survey is quicker than a traditional one and keeps people off the pile (both below) [6].
The buyer wants a volume and a tonnage for each pile, comparable from one survey to the next, and a record that will stand up when the inventory figure reaches the books. Volume turns into tonnage through a density. That density is either a handbook figure or one the site measured itself, and material swells when dug and compacts when placed, so the state of the material matters too.
Safety is a large part of the case. Without a drone, someone climbs the pile. The authors of a peer-reviewed comparison at a quarry call climbing the stockpile "the risky part" of the traditional survey, and note that injuries could be sustained where the pile holds large rock blocks [6]. MSHA's fatality alerts describe miners killed when stockpiles collapsed on them: in November 2022 a miner was engulfed in a coal stockpile, and MSHA's advice was to "make sure miners do not travel by foot on stockpiles or near the toe of stockpile slopes" [4]; in September 2022 a miner working near the toe of a pile to clear a feeder was engulfed when it collapsed [5]. Those accidents were not surveys, but the hazard is the same one a surveyor walking a pile faces.
Time. In a peer-reviewed comparison at a quarry, the drone survey of one pile took 35 minutes from setup to processed result, against 97 minutes for the traditional method [6].
A survey volume is only half of reconciliation. The other half is what the scale house, belt scales and production records say moved. When the two disagree, the inventory is adjusted. Measuring more often means a disagreement is found at the next survey rather than at year-end. Researchers comparing survey methods on aggregate stockpiles note that stockpile owners want effective inventory volumes "to optimize profit and limit waste" [8].
The same flights that measure stockpiles map the pit itself: the floor, the benches and the faces. MSHA requires mining methods that keep walls, banks and slopes stable where people work or travel, and says that "when benching is necessary, the width and height shall be based on the type of equipment used" to clean the benches or scale the walls [9]. Loose material near the top of a pit or quarry wall must be sloped to the angle of repose or stripped back at least 10 feet (3 m) from the edge where people work or travel [10]. A current topographic survey of the pit, compared with the mine plan and with the last survey, is how an operator sees what was mined and whether the benches are where the plan says.
Under MSHA's rules for surface metal and non-metal mines, ground examination is part of every working day. Designated people experienced in examining for loose ground must examine work areas before work starts, after blasting and during the shift as conditions warrant, and "highwalls and banks adjoining travelways shall be examined weekly or more often if changing ground conditions warrant" [12]. Hazardous ground must be taken down or supported before other work or travel is permitted in the area, and until it is, the area must be posted against entry, with a barrier when it is left unattended [11]. Drones let an examiner see the upper face and the catch benches without standing under them. Research groups are building on that: the University of Arizona's Geotechnical Center of Excellence runs a NIOSH highwall safety project on rockfall and catch-bench design, and a project using drone photogrammetry to model surface water in open pits [23]. A drone flight adds to the examination but does not replace it, and periodic flights are not continuous slope monitoring.
Berms or guardrails are required on the banks of roadways "where a drop-off exists of sufficient grade or depth to cause a vehicle to overturn or endanger persons in equipment", and they must be at least mid-axle height of the largest self-propelled mobile equipment that usually travels the road [13]. Openings are allowed for drainage [13]. Dumping locations need berms, bumper blocks or similar restraints where there is a hazard of overtravel or overturning [14]. The Bureau of Mines' 1977 manual on haul-road design covers vertical and horizontal alignment, cross slope, drainage, lane width and runaway-vehicle provisions [15]. A drone survey gives the road's elevation along its length and across it, which is what grade, cross-slope and berm-height checks are read from.
Water decides where a pit floods, where roads wash out and where sediment leaves the site. At coal mines, water, sediment and slurry impoundments that meet MSHA's size or hazard criteria must be examined "for appearances of structural weakness and other hazardous conditions" at intervals not exceeding 7 days, with instruments monitored on the same schedule, by a qualified person, unless the District Manager approves a longer interval [17]. At metal and non-metal mines, a water or silt retaining dam whose failure would create a hazard must be "of substantial construction and inspected at regular intervals" [16]. For tailings, the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, published on 5 August 2020, sets 15 principles and 77 auditable requirements, and says "a comprehensive monitoring system must support the full implementation of the 'observational method'" [18]. Peer-reviewed work shows how drones fit: a three-summer drone photogrammetry campaign over a tailings impoundment at a sub-Arctic mine built a surface model each year to track settlement and displacement, and its authors judged drone monitoring "sufficiently accurate for supporting impoundment management operations" [19]. Within such a system a drone survey supplies topography, beach and embankment change and a visual record; instruments supply pore pressure and movement.
Mined land has to be put back. For coal mines, the federal performance standards require disturbed areas to be graded to the approximate original contour, highwalls, spoil piles and depressions to be eliminated, and slopes kept no steeper than the angle of repose or the slope that achieves a long-term static safety factor of 1.3 [20]. Revegetation is judged against written standards for ground cover, production or stocking, and passes at not less than 90 percent of the standard, over a responsibility period of at least five years where annual average precipitation exceeds 26.0 inches (660 mm) and ten years where it does not [21]. Quarries and pits are reclaimed under state programmes, which differ from state to state and are not covered here. A drone survey gives the regraded surface, its slopes and the extent of disturbed and revegetated ground, flight after flight, for as long as the permit runs.
Before a shot, blasters need the true shape of the face to know the burden in front of each hole. A paper published by the International Society of Explosives Engineers reports that at a granite quarry with elevated air blast readings, blasts profiled in 3D by drone showed improved air blast levels compared with blasts profiled in 2D, helping the operator manage its readings and keep its licence to operate in the community [22]. After a shot, the muckpile and the new face can be flown again.
A site can fly with its own staff pilots or hire a drone service provider. Omniris supports either route (see Getting the flights flown).
For pile volumes, published studies put a well-flown drone survey within a few percent of the reference. At a quarry, a drone survey of one pile with five ground control points was within 2.6% of the mill operator's figure for the pile, and the traditional tape survey within 1.3%. Both were inside the ±3% maximum allowable error the authors cite [6]. A comparison against laser scanning found every photogrammetric model within 4%, with ground control improving accuracy [7]. A study of aggregate stockpiles found total-station surveys generally under-reported volumes and were impractical on finer aggregates, terrestrial laser scanning outperformed them, drone surveys showed promise particularly when flown lower with greater overlap, and accuracy varied by aggregate type [8]. For positions, the reference is the ASPRS Positional Accuracy Standards (Edition 2, first issued in August 2023), which report accuracy as RMSE at checkpoints, need at least 30 checkpoints for a product accuracy assessment, and want the checkpoints at least twice as accurate as the product they test [24].
Each mission from the previous section, matched to what Omniris delivers from the flight.
| Use case | What Omniris delivers |
|---|---|
| Stockpile volume and tonnage | Volume tool on the map: you draw the boundary, choose the base and the density, and get volume ± uncertainty and tonnage in yd³ and US tons |
| Inventory over time | A boundary saved on a site is measured automatically on every new survey of that site you stitch; volume-over-time chart, report and spreadsheet |
| Finding the pile's edge | An elevation underlay on the map shows the toe while you draw the boundary |
| Reconciliation against production | Survey volumes, changes and tonnage per flight, exported to a spreadsheet to set beside scale-house and production figures |
| Mined volume between surveys | Compare two flights over a pit, a zone or the whole site: material added and removed, ± uncertainty, alignment grade and a change map |
| As-mined against plan | A design surface (DXF, LandXML, a design GeoTIFF or an imported design model) as the base of a volume; an imported design model also in Compare's Design mode |
| Contours and CAD surfaces | Terrain analysis contours; DXF and LandXML export in State Plane, UTM or the survey's own system |
| Bench geometry | Profiles, slope map and 3D measuring tools that show bench widths and heights |
| Highwall and slope review | Slope map, change between flights with outlined areas of change, change alerts, and a 3D model of the face with distance and face-angle tools |
| Haul-road grade and cross slope | Slope map in percent grade with a click readout; elevation profiles along and across the road |
| Berm height at mid-axle | A profile drawn across the berm shows its height above the road, to set against your equipment's mid-axle height |
| Ponding and drainage | Ponding (depth, area, volume of each pond) and drainage flow lines from the terrain model |
| Impoundments and tailings | Topography, embankment change between flights, change alerts, findings and a custody record, alongside the site's instrument monitoring |
| Reclamation grading | Regraded surface against a design contour, slope maps, and the area of disturbed ground |
| Revegetation | NDVI and other vegetation indices, and their change between flights, from a multispectral camera |
| Faces before and after a blast | A georeferenced 3D model of the face, with distance, height and face-angle measurement |
| LiDAR surveys | LAS and LAZ files processed into a classified point cloud, terrain and surface models and contours |
| Issues to fix | Findings with location, evidence, status and a custody record, created by hand, from AI detection or from a change alert |
| Getting it flown | Mission planning with terrain following, FAA airspace checks and weather scoring; a marketplace for hiring pilots, with recurring jobs |
Every map Omniris stitches from an aerial flight comes with two elevation models: a surface model (DSM), the top of everything including the piles, and a terrain model (DTM), the modelled bare ground. A 3D model built from the flight provides the same two surfaces. Volumes are measured on them.
The results appear where a site manager already looks. The Site Navigator's Volumes section draws every saved boundary on the map and lists each measurement with one line per flight date and a volume over time chart. The site's page in the Site Manager shows the latest value of each measurement, with a printable report for each and a spreadsheet (CSV) of every result. That is your stockpile inventory as of the latest flight.
No data is never filled in. Where part of a boundary has no elevation (water, deep shadow, a gap in the map), those cells are left out and the result says what percentage was missing; above 2% it is flagged treat with caution. A crossed boundary is caught. On a stockpile measurement, when fill is a significant fraction of cut, the result warns that the boundary probably crosses the pile. The ± is the surface's, not yours. The uncertainty scales with the survey's resolution; a badly drawn boundary can be wrong by more than the ± suggests.
Two ways to compare dates, for two questions.
Every comparison is graded for how well the two flights line up vertically. A pair counts as anchored when the later flight was aligned to the earlier one, or when both were stitched against the same surveyed ground-control site. An anchored pair is graded from its recorded alignment error (RMSE): green at 1.6 ft (0.5 m) or less, amber up to 6.6 ft (2.0 m), and red above that; an anchored pair with no alignment error recorded is amber. Any other pair, including two RTK flights with no shared ground control, still computes, labelled estimate-grade. This matters at a mine more than almost anywhere: a single flight's pile volume is internally consistent without ground control, but the difference between two flights inherits any vertical drift between them, and drift reads as phantom material gained or lost. Fly with ground control, or align the re-flight to the earlier one, when the answer is a number someone will book. Comparisons between dates run between stitched maps, not 3D models, so two different reconstructions of the same ground are never mistaken for change.
A comparison answers once. A change alert keeps asking. From any elevation comparison on a site, press Alert me and set a threshold on net volume change, material added or material removed, in cubic yards (the default is 654 yd³ (500 m³)). Whenever a new flight lands on the site, Omniris compares it with the flight before it over the same area and emails you, and up to ten colleagues who can read the site, when the threshold is reached. Checks run every six hours.
The alert page outlines and numbers the areas that changed, largest first, with each one's size, average height change and volume, and whether the ground rose or fell. An area counts only when its change is larger than the surveys can resolve: more than three times the survey's resolution, more than twice the alignment error between the flights, and more than any minimum height you set, over at least 100 ft² (9.3 m²) unless you set a different minimum. Areas are traced only for anchored pairs; an estimate-grade pair fires on its number but gets no outlined areas. Each area can be turned into a finding, or the alert can do that every time it fires. For a highwall, a waste dump or an embankment, this is a standing question: tell me where this ground moved by more than I can explain.
Load the design into the vault and pick Design surface as a volume's base: a DXF of 3D faces or 3D polylines, a LandXML TIN surface, a design GeoTIFF, or an imported design model whose chosen objects' top faces form the surface. The result is cut and fill against the design, for a pit shell, a final bench, a pad or a reclamation contour. Compare's Design mode does the same against an imported design model for a whole survey and draws the cut and fill on the map. A design file is measured the way a design model is: the survey is converted into the file's own coordinate system and heights cell by cell, so a design in your State Plane zone in feet with NAVD88 heights is placed and compared correctly against a survey in UTM metres with GPS heights. What the file declares is used as it is. When the file leaves something out, the Volume tool asks for it: the coordinate system with the same picker as Export to CAD (a State Plane zone in its legal unit, UTM, or the survey's own), the vertical datum with the same choices as Import as Design Model, and, for a NAD83(2011) design in California, its epoch. The answers are saved with the measurement, and its report says which values the file declared and which were stated, and by whom. Heights that can't be converted reliably are refused with the reason, as is a design that lands nowhere near the survey. The Design, progress and integrations paper covers design models in full.
From a map's terrain or surface model, Terrain analysis makes, at full resolution:
On a haul road the slope map shows grade along and across the road; on a pit floor or a regraded dump, ponding shows where water will collect before the rain does. Use the terrain model for ground contours: contours on the surface model follow equipment and piles.
The Distance tool gives a line's horizontal length, its slope distance and its length over the ground at 16 ft (5 m) resolution. The Profile tool draws the elevation along a line as a chart, with a readout under the cursor, gaps where there is no data, and a CSV of the samples. Along a haul road that is the grade; across a road it is the cross slope; across a berm it is the berm's height above the running surface, ready to set against the mid-axle height of the largest equipment using the road.
A crosshatch or perimeter flight builds a textured 3D model of a face or a pile. In the 3D viewer, Measure reports path length, straight-line distance and vertical difference separately, so a face's height is never confused with a diagonal. Face area reports a face's area, perimeter and tilt from horizontal (0° flat, 90° vertical), which is the face angle. These tools are offered only on models the build placed on the Earth (georeferenced). A 3D model's surface and terrain models also work in the map's volume tool, labelled with their source. Gaussian splats, the other 3D product, are for viewing; measurements are taken on the 3D model or the map. See the Digital twins paper.
Where vegetation hides the ground, at a reclamation site or the edge of a pit, a LiDAR sensor sees through it. Omniris processes LAS or LAZ files from any LiDAR sensor into a classified point cloud (ground, vegetation, buildings, wires, noise), a terrain model, a surface model, a canopy height model and contours, viewable in a 3D viewer that streams the cloud. Classes can be corrected by hand and the terrain products rebuilt. The volume tool, Compare, terrain analysis and CAD export work from photo surveys (stitched maps and 3D models), not from LiDAR terrain models. See the LiDAR and point clouds paper.
Regrading is measured like any other earthwork: the regraded surface against the approved contour as a design surface, its slopes on the slope map, and the area of disturbed ground with the Area tool. Revegetation needs a multispectral camera (Multispectral paper). A multispectral flight produces an NDVI vegetation map, and an NDRE map when the camera has a red-edge band; Band Analytics adds other indices, and Compare measures how an index changed between two flights over a zone, including how much of the area improved, declined or stayed the same. Omniris shows the vegetation and how it is changing; the success determination under the permit, made from its own sampling standard, stays with the regulator.
A cracked berm, a washed-out ditch or a slumping face becomes a finding: a pin or outline on the map with a category, severity, status, assignee, photos and a custody history, created by hand, from AI detection, or from a change alert's areas of change. Findings export as GeoJSON, CSV or KML and reach other systems through the findings API and webhooks (Findings paper). AI detection is open-vocabulary: you describe what to look for, review and correct what it finds, and turn results into findings (AI detection paper). A situation report is one PDF telling a site's story between two dates, with the change, the findings and the source of every image.
Orion, the Omniris assistant, can answer questions about a site's surveys in plain language. It can measure a volume inside a saved boundary or a site zone, compare two flights and report material added and removed with the alignment grade, read an elevation profile, and report how tall things stand above the ground on a finished map. It reports in cubic yards and feet first, and it sees exactly what you are allowed to see (Orion paper).
Two kinds of accuracy matter at a mine, and they answer different questions.
Omniris covers the ground-control workflow from end to end (Stitching paper):
A checkpoint is a surveyed target left out of the fit and used only to measure the result. Import a file as checkpoints (or switch any surveyed point between GCP and checkpoint, with the switch recorded), mark it like a GCP, and the finished map reports its measured accuracy: horizontal, vertical and 3D RMSE at the checkpoints, feet first, with each point's error east, north and up, the difference between the map's surface and the surveyed height, and a tag on checkpoints outside the area the GCPs enclose. Evaluate checkpoints re-measures a finished map without stitching again.
The ASPRS standards describe how such an assessment is done: RMSE at checkpoints, at least 30 of them for a product accuracy assessment, each at least twice as accurate as the product [24]. Omniris reports the RMSE at the checkpoints you give it. It does not assign an ASPRS accuracy class, and whether the checkpoints are enough is for the surveyor to decide.
Published studies put well-flown drone stockpile volumes within a few percent of a reference survey [6][7]. Omniris attaches a ± to every volume, from an error per elevation cell that grows with the survey's cell size, added up over the cells measured. It reports how much of the boundary had no elevation, and warns when a stockpile boundary looks wrong. What it cannot measure is the boundary itself: where the toe is drawn, and whether it is drawn the same way each month, usually matters more than anything in the calculation.
Every contour file, terrain analysis and CAD export names the vertical datum its heights are in: orthometric heights above EGM96, ellipsoidal heights with their frame, or heights relative — vertical datum unknown when the flight cannot establish one. For an RTK flight on a base set up over an unsurveyed point, the output says that absolute position may be off by metres.
A drone survey processed in Omniris is a measurement, not a licensed land survey. Where a state, a permit or a contract requires a licensed surveyor's seal, Omniris supplies the data, the accuracy figures and the record behind them; the surveyor supplies the seal. Omniris computes and records. It does not certify that a mine, a road, a berm or a reclamation surface complies with any regulation.
An inventory figure ends up in the books, an as-mined volume in a royalty statement, and a slope picture in an incident file. Each one needs to show where it came from. Omniris keeps that record for every number in this paper (Evidence integrity paper).
For an operator facing an MSHA citation, a contractor dispute over hauled quantities, or an auditor testing year-end inventory, that record answers the first question asked: can you show how this number was made?
The Omniris mission planner turns an outline on the map into a flight the pilot imports into the aircraft's own app (Mission planning paper). Five patterns cover mine work: a grid for maps and elevation models, a crosshatch with the camera tilted for 3D models of faces, perimeter rings facing inward for stockpiles and structures, a corridor along a haul road, and an orbit around a single object. The planner works out overlap, ground detail and motion blur from the real camera, and estimates photos, time and batteries.
A pit is the hard case for altitude. FAA rules cap a small drone at 400 feet (122 m) above ground level, except within 400 feet of a structure [25], and a drone told to fly at a set height flies at that height above its take-off point, not above the pit floor. Terrain follow gives every waypoint its own height to hold a steady height above the ground, from a worldwide terrain model or, far better in a working pit, from your own previous survey's surface model. A minimum clearance above the modelled surface, 33 ft (10 m) by default, is kept everywhere. When the ground under the area varies by 49 ft (15 m) or more, the planner recommends turning it on.
Every saved mission is checked against FAA airspace along its whole route, including the floors of Class B, C, D and E airspace, and Omniris works out what LAANC authorization to request when one is needed, which matters for quarries near airports. Weather is scored hour by hour against the aircraft's limits, and a Part 107 pre-flight checklist is saved with the job. Omniris plans and checks the flight; the remote pilot in command flies it and remains responsible for it.
Omniris supports both ways a site gets its flights flown.
A hired pilot's results arrive in your vault as a read-only copy of the delivered folder, each file with a custody history that starts with where it came from. You review everything first, and downloads unlock when you accept. To measure a hired pilot's flight, stitch the delivered photos in your own account; a saved volume measurement on the site then measures that map on its own. The marketplace, payments and payouts are part of the Omniris cloud and the data center edition. On-premises installations do not include them (Sharing and delivery paper).
| What | Format | For |
|---|---|---|
| Contours | DXF (with heavier major lines), or GeoJSON from terrain analysis | CAD, mine planning and GIS software |
| Surfaces | DXF 3D faces or LandXML TIN, up to about 1 million and 4 million faces respectively | Civil design and mine planning software |
| Maps and elevation models | Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF | Any GIS; publishing to ArcGIS; a STAC bundle |
| Point clouds | LAZ, and COPC from LiDAR jobs | Point-cloud and survey software |
| Volumes | Printable report per measurement, in yd³ and US tons with metric beside them; CSV of every result, in metric units (m³, t, t/m³) for spreadsheet use | Inventory, accounting and audit files |
| Comparisons | Comparison report and CSV; change map as a GeoTIFF layer | Production and engineering review |
| Situation report | PDF, with sources and certificates | Owners, regulators, insurers |
| Findings | GeoJSON, CSV, KML; API and signed webhooks | Work-order, maintenance and GIS systems |
CAD export in State Plane. The Export to CAD dialog looks up the site's State Plane zone and starts in its legal unit (U.S. survey feet in most states, international feet in a few, metres where the law never adopted a foot). It shows the horizontal frame the map is in, the datum shift it will apply and its published accuracy, and the vertical datum. A map made without RTK or ground control is in WGS84/ITRF, which differs from NAD83(2011) by a metre or more and changes over time, so the export shifts it as of the flight date, letting the coordinates line up with surveyed NAD83 points. A map made with NAD83 ground control is never shifted twice. UTM and the survey's own coordinate system are offered too.
Sharing. Members of your organization work in its shared vault, and a folder can be shared with another Omniris user by a sharing code. For a consultant or a landowner who will never sign in, a folder, a 3D model or a site's map can be published on a public link; a folder link can carry a password and an expiry, and be view only or view and download. The Omniris desktop app opens the same sites, maps and measurements; the mobile field app carries jobs, files and findings on site.
Mine planning, fleet management, scale-house and inventory accounting systems take Omniris results through the files above.
Omniris runs in four places, and every tool in this paper is part of each:
| Deployment | Processing | Marketplace and payments |
|---|---|---|
| Omniris cloud on Microsoft Azure | A processing machine sized to each job, started for it and released after it | Included |
| Omniris cloud on Google Cloud | A processing machine sized to each job, started for it and released after it | Included |
| Omniris data center edition | Omniris' own hardware in its own data center | Included |
| On-premises | Your own processing machines; photos and results stay on your site | Not included |
For a mining company that wants survey data, designs and evidence kept on its own network, on-premises keeps the processing and the vault in house. An on-premises installation connected to the Omniris cloud can send a single stitching job there when it chooses. Security, encryption and access control are described in the Security paper.
A mine's numbers end up in the books, in permits and in safety files, so Omniris states what its results are and are not:
Regulation text is cited from the Legal Information Institute's reproduction of the Code of Federal Regulations; check the official eCFR before relying on it for a legal purpose.
Omniris vertical paper · Mining and aggregates · October 2026. Related feature papers: Stitching · Site management · Digital twins · LiDAR and point clouds · Evidence integrity · Mission planning.