From Tradition to Modern—Developments and Future Trends in

Engineering Surveying and Mapping

Sicheng Zhang

Faculty of Science and Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, Greater Manchester, U.K.

Keywords: Surveying and Mapping, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Development.

Abstract: Engineering surveying and mapping have always been an essential part of construction engineering; with the

development of The Times, engineering surveying and mapping began to change from the traditional way to

the direction of digital and intelligent. This paper uses the case study method and literature analysis method

to discuss the application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing, building information modeling

(BIM), and geographic information system (GIS) in the current field of engineering surveying and mapping

and analyses the advantages of these technologies in terms of surveying and mapping accuracy, project

management efficiency, and use cost, such as high precision, high efficiency, and able to demonstrate the

construction process concretely. This shows the importance of artificial intelligence and big data in

developing engineering mapping. Based on the literature reading on cutting-edge technologies and the

development status of existing surveying and mapping technology, this paper believes that the future

development of engineering surveying and mapping should continue to use big data analytics and artificial

intelligence. Continue to expand the utilization rate of BIM GIS and other similar technologies, so that the

entire engineering surveying and mapping industry can move forward to a more efficient and accurate goal.

1 INTRODUCTION

Surveying and mapping is a basic work in

construction engineering, including many links such

as project planning and design, construction safety

management, and project status detection.

Engineering surveying and mapping can provide

accurate three-dimensional data, providing a

reference for decision-making in the construction

process and ensuring production safety. Therefore,

surveying and mapping is an indispensable part of

modern engineering.

The traditional engineering surveying and

mapping methods mainly rely on manual

measurements, such as total station, mirror, tape, and

other optical and mechanical measuring instruments.

These methods are limited by terrain, vegetation,

weather, and other factors, and the mapping process

is long, labor-intensive, and lacks safety, although,

with the development of the industry, accuracy and

efficiency have improved, but still lag behind the

growing demand.

https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7412-0657

So, to seek change, since the 1990s, with the

development of aerospace and computer technology,

methods such as remote sensing (RS) and Global

Positioning systems (GPS) have emerged, which

have gradually transformed engineering surveying

and mapping from manual methods to digital methods.

Digital mapping technology has the characteristics of

high accuracy, easy transportation and storage of

equipment, and quickness. Now, with the wide

application of emerging technologies such as building

information modeling (BIM) and unmanned aerial

vehicle (UAV) surveying and mapping, engineering

surveying and mapping methods are developing

towards higher intelligence and automation.

This era is the era of rapid growth of computing

power, but also the era of continuous growth of urban

population; how to face the social development and

intelligent transformation trend is the opportunity

faced by engineering surveying and mapping. This

paper will explore this issue in depth, introduce UAV

remote sensing surveying technology, building

information modeling (BIM), geographic information

system (GIS), and the application of these

Zhang, S.

From Tradition to Modern—Developments and Future Trends in Engineering Surveying and Mapping.

DOI: 10.5220/0013326200004558

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Modern Logistics and Supply Chain Management (MLSCM 2024), pages 243-247

ISBN: 978-989-758-738-2

243

technologies in the field of engineering surveying and

mapping, explore how these technologies promote the

transformation of engineering surveying and

mapping to intelligence.

2 DEVELOPMENT STATUS OF

ENGINEERING SURVEYING

AND MAPPING TECHNOLOGY

In recent years, with the continuous innovation of

engineering surveying and mapping technology,

engineering surveying and mapping technology is no

longer only applied in engineering projects; it has

begun to be used in a wider range of related industries,

while the emergence and application of new

technologies have also brought new tools to the

engineering surveying and mapping industry, such as

UAV platform, light detection and ranging (LiDAR),

BIM system, GIS system.

In terms of urban planning and smart city

construction, the city 3D modeling and building data

provided by engineering surveying and mapping

technology provide planners with more

comprehensive information, and the use of relevant

BIM and GIS software equipped with this

information helps planners make better planning

decisions.

In civil engineering surveying and mapping, the

unmanned aerial vehicle platform equipped with

LiDAR has been widely used. The unmanned aerial

vehicle platform can easily reach the height that

manpower cannot reach, then survey the more

dangerous terrain, and generate 3D point cloud

images through the data scanned by the LiDAR

sensor, which is more efficient and safe than the

traditional surveying and mapping methods.

This paper will discuss the development status of

UAV remote sensing, BIM, and GIS in engineering

surveying and mapping, evaluate the current

application scenarios and advantages of these

technologies, analyze the current limitations and

shortcomings of these technologies, and put forward

some improvement suggestions conducive to the

industry's development.

2.1 Development of UAV Remote

Sensing Mapping Technology in the

Field of Engineering Mapping

Remote sensing refers to the technique of capturing

information at a distance (remotely) by specific

instruments (sensors) (Pajares, 2015). The continuous

development of commercial UAVs enables them to

carry more weight, last longer, and carry more

advanced sensor systems, which provides

opportunities for the use of remote sensing

technology on UAV platforms.

The UAV equipped with a remote sensing system

can scan and process a wide range of terrain data in

the air. Moreover, the UAV has a built-in GPS, and

the user can complete the mapping task of the

specified area by writing the flight path of the UAV.

During the use period, the operator only needs to

control the data remotely to ensure the correct data

transmission and flight path.

In the UAV remote sensing surveying and

mapping technology, the UAV using a LiDAR sensor

is a typical example. The survey area is scanned by

the carried LiDAR sensor. After the scanning is

completed, the collected data is digitally processed by

software. As a result, three-dimensional topographic

maps are generated, and LiDAR does not require

much light, so mapping tasks can be carried out

normally even at night when there is no light (He,

2020).

UAV remote sensing surveying and mapping

technology has many advantages over traditional

surveying and mapping technology. For surveying

and mapping engineering, the effective

implementation of itself is carried out through

effective cooperation between various departments

(Zuo, 2022). The most obvious advantage of UAVs is

their flexibility. Compared with the large amount of

equipment required for traditional surveying and

mapping, the UAV itself is small in size and light in

weight, and the preparation before the mapping is not

complicated, and the scanning work can be started

immediately. In the surveying and mapping process,

some terrain will be more complicated, and the

surrounding environment will make it difficult to

install surveying and mapping instruments, which

will also pose a threat to the safety of surveying and

mapping workers. The application of UAV remote

sensing technology can replace manual surveying and

mapping work in dangerous and narrow areas, and

only workers need to remotely control in safe areas,

and the security of the surveying and mapping

process can be guaranteed. In the process of

construction and mapping, emergencies caused by

weather changes and emergencies occurring in the

construction process often need to understand the site

situation and make effective decisions quickly. At

this time, UAV remote sensing mapping technology

can be quickly deployed to analyze the area and help

decision-makers understand the site situation so as to

reduce losses and casualties the first time.

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Compared with traditional mapping methods, the

UAV operating system is relatively simple, requiring

only a few days of training and practice, and users can

master the basic operation. Because traditional

surveying and mapping methods often require a

longer period of learning and practice, the advantages

of drone technology are more obvious on the learning

curve. UAVs can scan a large area of terrain in a short

time and turn it into a digital three-dimensional image.

The scanning results are more accurate, and the

surveying and mapping tasks can be completed more

efficiently.

Although commercial UAVs have high flexibility,

the use of UAVs is still affected by environmental

factors, such as wind speed, temperature vegetation

density, etc. Environmental effects need to be

considered in the process of use. For example, the

flight stability of UAVs will be greatly affected by

strong winds and heavy rains. In less harsh

environments, UAVs can normally complete flight

tasks, such as in cloudy weather or when the ambient

wind speed is less than 6, UAVs can still carry out

aerial photography detection (Zuo, 2022).

2.2 Application of BIM in Urban

Planning

BIM is a representation process that creates and

provides, in all respects, a multi-dimensional view of

the building data throughout the life cycle of the

building (Borkowski, 2023). Therefore, this means

that BIM technology not only includes digital 3D

models, It also includes the design process, material

allocation, construction arrangement and other

contents of the entire construction project, and is a

tool that can integrate all aspects of a construction

project. It can act as a public knowledge resource

about object information and lay a reliable foundation

for decision-making throughout its life cycle from the

very beginning (Dixit, 2021).

After building a 3D model through BIM and

importing the environmental and meteorological data

of the city, the daylight interval, air flow and

temperature changes caused by sunlight inside the

building can be visually seen through the simulation

software, which enables designers to find the

problems and defects in architectural design faster

and modify the defective design.

The amount of engineering material planning in

construction is huge and complex, and manual

planning is often prone to poor planning, resulting in

material loss or waste and delay of the construction

period. The BIM system can provide the basic data of

the construction of the building and clearly show the

required materials and the construction side can make

a more accurate material plan, thereby reducing the

waste of materials and time.

Compared with the traditional CAD 3D model,

the advantage of BIM is that it can add a timeline

based on the 3D model to simulate the construction

progress of the entire construction cycle, which can

not only make decisions compared with the actual

construction progress but also allow investors to

clearly understand the progress of the entire project

so that the communication between the construction

side and the owner becomes more direct and simple.

Although BIM is of great significance to building

planning, at present, there are still many problems

that need to be solved in the wide application of BIM.

In a construction project, "stakeholders" are the

decisive factor for the success of the project (Xu,

2023). However, in the construction project in which

BIM participates, it is different from traditional

stakeholders. For example, developers of BIM

applications can charge high software royalties and

make profits from them (Rezwan, 2022). It can be

seen that the stakeholder structure of projects using

BIM will also change, and this uncertainty will lead

many developers to give up using BIM technology.

2.3 Application of Geographic

Information System （GIS）

A geographic information system is a computer-aided

system for the collection, storage, management, and

analysis of the representation of geographic reference

data (Rezwan, 2022). It can collect all kinds of terrain

data and integrate it into one system, and relative to

BIM, it features such as 3D component editing,

terrain modelling and geospatial analysis that BIM

lacks, and these functions are now major

requirements in the construction industry, so GIS

plays a key role in building planning. GIS can

monitor geographical space, which can help in the

planning of building safety programs. Engineers can

understand the environmental conditions, site

topography, temperature distribution, etc., through a

GIS system to plan the possible risks. For example,

by understanding the terrain conditions near the

construction project, they can know the areas where

landslides may occur. Plan escape routes and

emergency plans.

At the same time, GIS can make up for the

shortcomings of BIM in terrain rendering. In actual

design, GIS is responsible for large-scale planning of

buildings, and BIM is responsible for small-scale

design inside and around buildings, which can better

improve design efficiency.

From Tradition to Modern—Developments and Future Trends in Engineering Surveying and Mapping

245

3 DEVELOPMENT TREND OF

ENGINEERING SURVEYING

AND MAPPING

With the progress of computer science, engineering

surveying and mapping gradually began to intelligent

transformation, which is the general trend, although

the accuracy of surveying and mapping is getting

higher and higher, modern technology is still not

mature, although the UAV remote sensing surveying

and mapping technology can be quickly and

efficiently deployed and work, but still can not be

used in special weather conditions, and the endurance

time is not high; Although the development of BIM

and GIS can make building design and management

more efficient, and security monitoring can be

guaranteed, they are still in the initial stage. Coupled

with the changes in stakeholders and old-fashioned

ideas, they are faced with many obstacles and cannot

be widely implemented. Besides, BIM and GIS

systems can save costs for project expenditure.

However, more work is needed to implement the

design in the early stage, and the number of workers

who have the relevant knowledge is also smaller,

which leads to more expenses.

Future engineering surveying and mapping is

developing towards digitalisation, intelligence and

big data analysis. With the improvement of computer

computing power in recent years, the addition of

machine learning, artificial intelligence and other

technologies can replace users to complete some

basic operations, such as autonomous UAV

navigation (Lu, 2018). This technology can ensure

that the UAV moves along a given route in a complex

dynamic environment, using AI's visual analysis to

determine the running path and avoid roadblocks

(Trzeciak, 2023); For example, the use of AI to merge

time-synchronized and spatially registered images

and LiDAR scans into higher resolution dense scans,

then gradually reconstructed, which can retain useful

3D point data, eliminate noise, and make 3D

modeling clearer (Zhu, 2021).

The amount of data generated by engineering

surveying and mapping is very large, and the sources

of the data are mixed. Therefore, combining big data

analysis and cloud computing technology can more

effectively store, manage and analyse the surveying

and mapping data, and realise the real-time sharing

and presentation of data. By introducing neural

networks to fuse full-wave LiDAR and polar-

interferometric SAR data information, users can

predict a wide range of forest information.

4 CONCLUSION

This paper discusses the current development status

of engineering surveying and mapping technology

and mainly studies the use of UAV remote sensing

surveying and mapping technology, BIM systems and

GIS systems in the current industry. The research

found that although the UAV remote sensing

mapping technology has been widely used in the

mapping process, the UAV platform still has the

problems of insufficient endurance and low stability,

and the efficiency of the data processing method

collected by the sensor is still not fast enough. BIM

system plays a significant role in improving

construction efficiency and reducing costs, but it is

not widely used at present due to the old-fashioned

thinking of the industry. GIS systems can help

engineers better understand terrain data and

environmental information, but its obstacle is that the

information source is complex, and the data is large

and difficult to process and integrate. In the future,

with the addition of big data and artificial intelligence,

all kinds of information obtained from surveying and

mapping will be more closely linked, and the

engineering surveying and mapping industry will

liberate complicated human labour and develop in a

more intelligent direction.

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