Virtual Surveyor includes triangulation tools that help you create a surface from enabled survey geometries. The Triangulate All/Within/Selection tool builds a surface as a Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN).
Triangulate All
The Triangulate All button appears in the HOME tab by default when nothing is selected and all drawn geometries are visible in the Viewport.
Triangulate Within
If you select a boundary, this button changes to Triangulate Within. Triangulation will then be created only inside the selected boundary.
- The Triangulate Within button is also available in the Create group of the TOOLS for Boundary tab.
Triangulate Selection
If you select one or more drawn geometries, the Triangulate Selection button becomes available. 
Before using any triangulation tool, make sure you have drawn and enabled the survey geometries that define your surface—such as points, breaklines, and boundaries.
- Use Triangulate All when you want to create a TIN across the full extent of your drone survey.
- Use Triangulate Within when you want to create a TIN only inside a specific area defined by a boundary.
- Use Triangulate Selection when you want to build a TIN from only specific portions of your survey.
Overview
How to Triangulate a Survey
- Make sure all relevant drawn geometries are active.
- (Optional) Draw and select the boundary you want to triangulate within.
- (Optional) Select the geometry or geometries you want to triangulate.
- Click Triangulate All, Triangulate Within, or Triangulate Selection, depending on what you want to create.
- Your surface (TIN) is created.
Examples of When You Can Triangulate Drawn Geometries
Triangulate Breaklines
Triangulate a surface from breaklines and export the contour lines.
Triangulate a Bare Earth Surface with Q-Points
Use Q-Points to create a surface for a quarry. Q-Points is also a great option for bare earth construction sites.
Triangulate a Surface with a Low-Pass Points Grid
Create a surface from a densely vegetated open canopy area using a Low-pass points grid.
Triangulate a Surface from a 2D Map
Create a design surface from a 2D map.
Triangulate a 3D Surface
Create a 3D surface over a specific part of your drone survey by triangulating within a boundary.
Triangulate a Stockpile Calculation
Generate a reference surface for stockpile calculation by triangulating within a boundary.
Road Survey with Section Lines
Make a road survey with section lines by triangulating within the boundary created around the lines.
Tips and Tricks
- The triangulation tool creates a surface from all visible geometries in the Viewport.
- All survey points, line vertices, and boundary vertices are used to build the surface TIN.
- You can select multiple boundaries before starting the triangulation process to create multiple surfaces at once.
- Press and hold Ctrl while clicking in Project Data to select multiple geometries in the Viewport or the Project View.
- When creating surfaces for bare earth projects, Virtual Surveyor gives you two helpful ways to refine the initial surface so it matches the terrain more accurately.
- For a fast improvement, use Auto-Flip Edges to automatically flip TIN edges so they better fit the underlying terrain.
- If you want more control, use Flip Edge to manually flip individual triangle edges.
- You can also edit and fine-tune the surface after triangulation by adding or removing vertices—without needing to recreate the entire surface.
- Remove vertices by highlighting the surface and selecting Edit Surface in the TOOLS tab. Use Remove Vertex to quickly eliminate unwanted points on buildings, trees, vehicles, and other objects.
- Add vertices using Edit Surface in the TOOLS tab. Switch to Add Vertex mode and left-click the terrain to add new vertices where needed.