Virtual Surveyor includes a Stockpile tool that allows you to easily create and measure quantities of a stockpile from drone surveys by measuring the volume, calculating the tonnage, and discerning the monetary value. The Stockpile button appears in the Tools tab when a Boundary or Surface is selected. The final outputs are stockpiles with quantities, measurements, and values that can be viewed and analyzed when a Stockpile is selected. This article will explain what stockpiles are, and how you can generate them yourself using drone data.

Overview

• What is a Stockpile?
• Create a Stockpile from a Boundary by Use Type
• Creating a Stockpile from a Surface
• Produce a PDF Report and Export Stockpiles
• Assigning Material
  • Undefined Material
• Annotate and View Stockpile Information
  • Annotate Stockpile Information
  • View Individual Stockpile Information
• Tips and Tricks

What is a Stockpile?

A stockpile is a measurement of bulk materials—such as soil, gravel, sand, minerals, or waste—typically formed into piles for storage, processing, or future transport. In surveying, a stockpile refers to these physical mounds when they are quantified using spatial data, most often through drone photogrammetry or traditional survey instruments.

Stockpiles are commonly found on:

• Construction sites
• Mining operations
• Aggregate quarries
• Landfill and waste management facilities
• Agricultural or fertilizer depots

Common stockpile materials:

• Aggregate
• Sand, topsoil, ores, coal, waste rock
• Lumber
• Compost, fertilizer
• Salt
• Waste, garbage

Create a Stockpile from a Boundary by Use Type

In the Virtual Surveyor app, you can select the Use type of a Stockpile you want to create by drawing and selecting a Boundary around the pile of materials and choosing among four surface types to generate the appropriate calculations for the stocked material:

• 3D Surface: Surface extrapolated from the boundary vertices.
• Flat: User defined flat surface. 
  • The elevation value needs to be set by the user in the Elevation box.
• Flat Minimum: A flat surface set at the lower vertex elevation of the boundary. 
• Timestep: Additional terrain models you compare against using consistent base references —captured at different times—that are available in the project on separate dates, to monitor changes over time. 
  • Each dataset by date/purpose needs to be set by the user in the Compare to box. 
  • This option is only available when the project contains multiple Timesteps on the Timeline.

Create the stockpile from a boundary:

1. Trace the toe (base) of the pile with Boundary tool.
2. Select a boundary.
3. Go to Tools tab.
4. In the Volumes group, select the Use type of the stockpile . 
5. Optional - Select the stockpile Material to assign it to the stockpile.
6. Click the Stockpile button to calculate the volume.
7. A Stockpile is created from the boundary with the appropriate Use Type, and the stockpile quantities and information are available in the Selection box.

Creating a Stockpile from a Surface

You can manually create a stockpile from a surface that was generated from a survey. You can create a surface under the stockpile using the Virtual Surveyor app, or you can load a surface into the app that was created using a CAD program.

1. Select the surface that was created for a stockpile.
2. Go to the Volumes group in the Tools tab.
3. The 'Use' type is unavailable because the stockpile is being created from a surface. 
4. Optional - select a stockpile Material to assign it to the stockpile.
5. Click on the Stockpile button to calculate the volume.
6. A Stockpile is created, and the quantities and information are available in the Selection box.

You can create a surface to fit the form of any stockpile, including a stockpile over a bank. 

Produce a PDF Report and Export Stockpiles

Produce a PDF Report. The Virtual Surveyor app will produce a PDF report (with the click of a button) that includes all the stockpile information you've already generated in a neat and organized PDF deliverable that includes tables of information and illustrations for each stockpile, along with the materials used and its complete information. 

Export stockpile information. you can also export the stockpile information as a CAD file using any of the following file formats:

• .csv
• .shp

Assigning Material

You can search for and assign materials —that you've created in the Material Editor— to a stockpile in one of three ways:

1. After you have selected either the boundary or the surface and clicked on the Tools tab, you can assign the material to the stockpile before you click on the Stockpile button.
   
2. After generating the stockpile, if you did not select a material before generating it, you can select the stockpile, go to the Tools tab, and assign the material from the search box under Material.
   
3. Right-click on the stockpile and select Assign Material from the mini-toolbar.
   

Reassign material to a stockpile. You can always reassign a different material to a stockpile at any time using options 2 and 3 from the above options:

• Through the Tools tab
• Through the mini-toolbar

Undefined Material

Any undefined material can be given a category and colored to your specification using the Material Editor, just remember that it is considered undefined because it does not have an assigned weight or monetary value. The undefined material color for the example project in the illustration below is set to white. 

Annotate and View Stockpile Information

Annotate Stockpile Information

You can annotate one or multiple stockpiles in the Viewport to get a quick analysis on all the stockpiles at the same time from information you have created and entered using the Material Editor. 

Select the stockpile(s) you want to annotate and go to the Tools tab. From there, you can include any stockpile information you'd like to see directly over the stockpiles:

View Individual Stockpile Information

When you select a stockpile you can view its related properties, along with any assigned material, in the Selection Box:

1. Select a stockpile.
2. Look in the Selection Box for the following stockpile information:

The Selection Box includes all the information you entered in the Material Editor Panel for the selected stockpile and allows you to see all the information at a quick glance.

• You can copy the stockpile information by clicking on the clipboard icon at the top right of the Selection Box.

Tips and Tricks

• When you calculate a stockpile, the volume calculation is done between the current terrain and the selected/compared to surface. 
  • A "current terrain" means the elevation terrain and the active terrain modifiers (e.g., a removed conveyor or truck) that are applied on top of the terrain.
  • All available data points are used in the calculation.
• You can select multiple surfaces/boundaries to create multiple stockpiles simultaneously, and their volumes are calculated for each selected stockpile individually.