See what's new at Propeller.
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November + December 2024
What's new? 🚀
- New toolbar: We’ve replaced the Create Measurement button with a new, always-on toolbar featuring three dual-action tools: Point, Line, and Polygon. Each tool doubles as a drop-down menu with a variety of measurement templates, which can be pinned to the toolbar for quick access. This update is rolling out in phases; all users will have access by the end of the month. Learn more >
- Vertical face imagery (VFI): Request Vertical Face Imagery as an additional output when uploading a photogrammetry survey to produce a fully textured 3D mesh model. VFI can be toggled on and off as a layer from the SURVEY tab for visual inspections. Learn more >
- Bulk cross-sections on an alignment: Easily generate and export bulk cross-sections at each station or chainage along alignments for streamlined reporting, analysis, and reduced reliance on external tools. Learn more >
Performance improvements + updates ⚡️
- Adjust base map elevation: Set the base map's elevation to match your site on projects without drone data. This adjustment aligns design uploads more accurately with the base map for easier measurements. Find this option in the three-dot menu next to Base Map in the Surveys menu. Learn more >
- Additional export formats: When exporting measurements you can now download a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the area in a raster format in GeoTIFF, and download a surface Contour file in your specified interval from your site. Learn more >
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Propeller Mobile updates: We've upgraded the drawing experience on the mobile app. Learn more >
- Live distance on mobile: Use the line tool to view the distance between your starting point and any other point on the map. This enables you to adjust or verify measurements before finalizing.
- Measure stockpile volume: After drawing a polygon, select the Smart Volume Surface to calculate the volume of a stockpile. Learn more >
- Point-of-interest for alignments: Point-of-interest measurements now include station and offset details, exportable in reports, enabling teams to share and pinpoint events or structures on linear projects. Learn more >
- Custom aspect ratio for cross-section charts: Match the aspect ratio of the cross-section chart to the report, or select an alternate one to suit your team's needs.
October 2024
What's new? 🚀
- Anzu Raptor drone integration: The Anzu Raptor drone is supported by Propeller’s PPK workflow, achieving an expected accuracy of 5–10 cm with 1–3 AeroPoints per 150 acres. Learn more >
- Daily DirtMate reports sent via email: DirtMate customers with appropriate permissions can now configure daily DirtMate reports sent by email, from the Outputs tab. Learn more >
Performance improvements + updates ⚡️
- Create a sharable link with Crew: Crew is now available to all users. Generate a unique URL to share your map with anyone, even those without a Propeller account, viewable on any device. Learn more >
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Lidar enhancements: We’ve improved the lidar survey processing experience. Learn more >
- Credit balance: When uploading files from DJI L1 or L2 sensors for processing, you’ll see a license check, the upload cost in credits, and your remaining credit balance.
- Processing status: Check the processing status of your lidar survey data directly in the platform under DATA PROCESSING.
- Indicate Control Point Purpose: Specify if your control points should be used as ground control or checkpoints and exclude them from processing when uploading a lidar dataset.
- Enable Quality Assurance: Add a quality assurance check in the Review and Complete section for your lidar survey.
- Sorting Material Properties: Sort material properties by name to find what you need more easily.
- ‘Remember My View’ functionality: Using a new URL parameter, the platform now 'remembers' your current camera view, visible designs, and measurements. Share or open the URL in a new browser window to return to the same view. Supports up to 20 designs, 20 measurements, and 10 individually selected design layers.
- Resizable cross-section chart: You can easily control the height of your cross-section chart and adjust your view as needed. Hover over the top of the chart, then drag it up and down to resize.
September 2024
New Shrink/Swell Calculator: Adjust Cut, Fill, and Net Volumes
Use Crew to instantly share your map(s) via a link with anyone, anywhere
- Get 2D Site Overview Move, zoom, and select areas of the map in relation to your location
- See Map details
- Show or hide designs that were included in the link
- Select line work to view details of designs, for example, to view utilities
- Do elevation spot checks
- View volumes of included measurements
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Available to all customers
- Only users with EDIT permission can view the new Crew tab and create Crew links
- Gradual rollout (allow up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 25th, 2024
Tell a story with multiple surveys: New Survey Explorer
- Turn on layers across multiple site surveys.
- Fly to survey to quickly zoom in to any survey for a better look.
- Compare layers across a subset of surveys without losing your place.
- Sort surveys by recently captured (default) or by name.
- Filter by map view so only surveys within your current map view are listed.
In addition, you can quickly navigate to a survey for further measurement or analysis by clicking “Open in new tab”. Survey Explorer is found at the bottom of the SURVEY TAB.
Availability
- Available to all customers
No survey needed – Use Propeller in the pre-construction phase of your project
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- Upload site photos: So you can view site inspection photos during pre-bidding/early stages.
- Upload design files: (e.g. Site plans, Civil plans, utility schematics) In PDF, DXF, XML, TTM, KML, and KMZ formats.
- Create measurements: Draw lines between two or more points and measure point-to-point distance and horizontal distance. and surface areas.
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Available to all customers
- Note only Portal owners and admins can create a new site
July 2024
Focus on What Matters: Hide Inactive Sites and Organize Your Homepage
- Group sites together
- Create a new site group
- Move sites into/out of a site group
- Ungroup and delete a site group
- Rename a site group
- Make site inactive or active
- Available to all customers
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- Organization owners can manage site groups and make sites inactive/active.
- Site groups are visible for any users that have access to a site in that site group.
Take Your Propeller Workflows to the Next Level: Introducing the Scale Platform Plan
- Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) is a means of serving map layers as cached map tiles, effectively "streaming" tiled imagery or orthophotos from Propeller into your preferred GIS software.
- Read-only Public API - Our API enables teams with developers to design custom integrations with the Propeller platform, including importing new survey files into third-party software.
- Private Workspaces, enabling you to limit access measurements and designs to invited users only.
- Note this plan is also available as Trimble Stratus Scale for Trimble Stratus customers.
More detailed Survey Status Updates in the Platform - No More Waiting for Answers!
- the processing status
- the site name and when it was submitted
- the name of the survey
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Available to all customers
- All users with view access for a site can see the processing status.
Some little changes to the Platform that will make a difference
- The Propeller (or Trimble Stratus) logo now acts as a true ‘home button’ allowing you to navigate back to the Homepage.
- In the top navigation bar, the secondary branding color (found in Organization settings under Branding Detail) is no longer applied to the full bar but will now applied around your company logo only. This transition will aid accessibility by improving the contrast of typography in the platform.
- Portal picker has a slight redesign making it a little more refined.
- The overflow menu is now on the left-hand side and restyled to align to improve the user experience on mobile devices.
- Available to all customers
June 2024
Free Up Space! See which sites are hogging all your storage space and delete unwanted files
In Platform Analytics you can now select the top 10 sites by 'storage' and see the top 10 sites in your portal using the most storage (GB).
With a quick link to "Manage storage", you can delete unwanted survey datasets and output files to reduce your total stored data.
Availability
- Available to all customers
Introducing Alignments and Stationing for your construction projects
- Upload LandXML files quickly and easily.
- Toggle visibility of alignments: Select single or multiple alignments to view them on the map.
- See the station and offset at a glance: Activate an alignment to reference the station and offset position of your cursor relative to that alignment.
Whether in the office or onsite, you can view alignments and get station and offset references on your desktop and mobile devices.
Availability
- Available to all customers
Introducing Private Workspaces: Keep your worksite data organized + protected
- Create a Private Workspace in the ‘Measure’ and ‘Designs’ tab.
- Manage access to a workspace: Invite existing users or teams to a private workspace with the sharing settings.
Availability
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Initially available only to Early Access Program customers
- Only users who have the new Create workspace permission can create workspaces (initially given to everyone who has the Manage Access permission).
- Private Workspaces will join WMTS and Read-only Public API to become a paid premium bundle in the Propeller Scale tier. If you are interested in getting access then please get in touch with your Customer Success Engineer.
Streamlined Experience: DirtMate management features now integrated into the Propeller Mobile App and Platform
- Manage your DirtMate site setup - set up a new site, manage your base DirtMate, and deactivate a site when moving the hardware to a new site.
- Set site working times, including managing daylight savings.
- Manage your DirtMates - configure each DirtMate to start collecting data per their installation method, and access basic health status.
- Set the data collection times of each DirtMate individually, or several at a time, to maximize battery life and efficiently capture machine data.
- Configure networks already set up on your site or Propeller-provided gateways for your DirtMates to connect to.
- Available to all DirtMate customers
May 2024
Weatherproof Your Worksite: Simulate, Plan & Manage Water and Rain Events with Hydrology Tools
- Flood to Level Analysis to show the potential impact of a flood at specified water levels.
- Surface Runoff Simulation to simulate the path of water flow across a site in response to rainfall or spills. And draw a polygon boundary, then run a simulation for a select area of your site.
- Catchment/Watershed Analysis tools to generate breached stream networks on any region helping you to visualize where water will flow to and from and the catchment areas.
- Direct Rainfall Simulation to simulate and visualize the effects of rainfall over time within a specified area.
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Available to all customers
- Users must have Inspect permissions to access the Hydrology toolset.
- Users will need the Measure permission to use the simulations and the Catchment/Watershed Analysis tools
Introducing the new Crop Tool: Accurate data, right to the edge
- Draw a custom survey boundary
- Edit and remove the crop as needed
- Reuse a crop boundary from a previous survey
- Upload a KML boundary
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Available for: All customers
- Note that only users with Processing permission turned on can create a crop. The crop will be applied for all users.
Measure your way: Select Units for Distance, Area, Volume, and Density
- Select the most appropriate measurement unit for distance, area, volume and density.
- Move between imperial and metric units as needed.
- Create reports in your preferred units.
- Available for: All customers
Manage Site Data Volumes with Bulk Deletion
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Available for: All customers
- Only users with Edit permission (this includes owners and admins) can delete survey datasets at a site level.
Storage Mystery Solved: Check your total data stored
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Available for: All customers
- Only users who are Portal owners or Administrators can view Platform Analytics
April 2024
Boost organization and teamwork: Introducing Workspaces
- Create new workspaces in the ‘Measure’ and ‘Designs’ tabs.
- Move design and measurement files (and folders) into a new workspace
- Link design files (or folders) to a new workspace from another.
Availability
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Available to all customers
- Only users who have the new Create workspace permission can create workspaces (initially given to everyone who has the Manage Access permission).
Take control - select the correction method you want for your dataset
Availability
- Available to all customers
Note: This update will be released over a 7-day period starting on April 9th, 2024, so you may not see this change immediately.
March 2024
Effortless User Management: Introducing Bulk Remove Users
Availability
- Available for: All customers
- Who can use this: Anyone with manage access (includes owners and admins)
February 2024
Magic Polygons just got whole lot more powerful
The new and improved Magic Polygon tool will suggest boundaries for measurements or terrain cleanups, and allow you to effortlessly customize the number of suggested vertices and adjust the buffering around objects (e.g a stockpile) to achieve your desired outcome.
Say goodbye to spending ages drawing polygons manually, ‘cause this tool is all about saving you time!
Specifically you can:
- Increase or decrease the buffer around an object
- Increase or decrease the no of vertices around an object in your site.
For example, you might increase the number of vertices around a stockpile and increase the buffering to ensure you have a more accurate polygon and have captured the edges of a stockpile. This gives you a more reliable volume measurement and ensures you get consistent stockpile measurements throughout your project.
For a terrain clean-up, you might want to increase the buffering around an object such as a vehicle, or bridge before removing it from your terrain model. Thus helping you get more accurate earthwork quantities.
Why it’s important
This updated Magic Polygon experience helps save you time by helping you to do Stockpile measurements and terrain clean-ups more quickly and with more control.
Availability
- Available to all customers
New downloadable DTM (GeoTIFF) and contour (DXF) files types.
We've added two new file types that you can download for use in third-party software. Lidar geo-referenced Digital Terrain Model (GeoTiff - DTM) and contour (DXF) formats that geo-reference the site CRS.
To download these survey files:
- Click the OUTPUTS tab in the main menu
- Choose Files under the SURVEY FILES category
- Select the format you need.
New orthophoto export formats available.
More flexibility and easier workflows with new downloadable format options.
When exporting Orthophotos from measurement, in addition to GeoTIFF and JPEG, we now offer the following file formats:
- KML (Google Earth compatibility)
- JP2 (reduced file size)
- PNG (transparency)
From the MEASUREMENTS tab, select Export, choose the option 'Orthophoto via Email' then select the preferred file format from the dropdown list.
New Autodesk Build integration for exporting files.
No more lost time manually downloading files and uploading them to Autodesk Build.
Push files directly from Propeller to Autodesk Build for faster, more efficient data exporting. From the OUTPUTS tab, choose Files, select a format, then choose PUSH TO, and select Autodesk Build from the integrations list.
January 2024
New Surface Comparison Tool: Users can now select any two surfaces of any kind (including Surveys, Designs, and surfaces created using reference elevations and polygons), in any order and compare them.
2023
November 2023
New: Update to Cross-Sections—click to freeze cursor
You can now click on the Cross-Section to “freeze” a cursor in place, and subsequently add additional cursors. To remove these cursors, simply use the "Clear Marks" button, which becomes available after freezing a cursor.
New: Enhanced OBJ
An enhancement to our existing textured model (OBJ) exports has increased the resolution by 4X and unlocks additional customer workflows and the ability to inspect finer imagery details.
This update supports both published and local sites and aligns with other geo-referenced data for use in 3rd party software.
More ways to measure Cross-Sections
- New measurement types: We’ve added a drop-down menu to the existing cross-section tool that provides four additional measurement options: horizontal, tangent (degrees), tangent (ratio), and tangent (percent).
- Horizontal measurement: The horizontal mode rotates the plane of measurement by 90° to display the horizontal distance between two surfaces rather than the vertical distance.
- Tangent Measurements: The three tangent measurements rotate the measurement tool so that it lies at a tangent to the surface that your cursor is hovering over, projecting a perpendicular line outward.
Learn more about the updates to the Cross-Section measurement tool.
Following the release of our Mobile App, we heard consistent feedback that it was too hard to see through the surface to the underlying terrain, making it difficult to place the crosshair in relation to terrain features. This update makes it easier for anyone trying to make measurements in the Mobile App with design surfaces turned on.
October 2023
Update to Reports: We’ve combined the Stockpile Inventory Report and Measurement Report into one reporting tool that delivers additional functionality. Other improvements linked to this update include:
- Interactive cropping window: Automatically capture exactly what you see in Propeller (measurements and all) with added layers of data for both PDF reports and PDF maps.
- Greater control: Choose the resolution, format, and orientation of your report contents and customize your measurement labels and document title.
- Better previews: Preview your report before exporting it to make sure everything’s formatted to your preferences.
User permissions update: Users with INSPECT level permissions can now view the Survey tab and use all the features apart from Terrain Cleanups
Introducing Magic Polygons: A new AI feature designed to quickly identify objects within orthophotos, providing intuitive polygon suggestions for stockpile measurements and terrain cleanups. Learn more.
September 2023
New lidar workflow: Capture an accurate bare earth ground surface below vegetation for bidding with our new supported workflow with DJI Zenmuse L1 sensor + RGB camera. We now process your raw L1 data, georeference, classify ground and non-ground points, and produce an accurate existing ground topo.
Learn how to plan a lidar mission with the DJI M300 and L1 sensor and how to upload lidar data using AeroPoints as ground control.
Support for underground utilities: You can now access utility cross-sections and design line work on any device.
A new 'Fair' range was added to the photogrammetry processing report. Previously the image quality range in the processing report was either ‘Good’ or ‘Poor’. ‘Fair 0.8 > x >= 0.7’ has been added as an additional range to improve accuracy.
August 2023
Empty Design folders now grayed out in the Mobile App: quickly see which folders are empty in the Layers > Designs tab on Mobile.
New AeroPoint activation workflow: while functionality remains the same, we've updated the interface to make it easier to activate AeroPoints in two ways; as a five-pack via the activation code or individually via the serial number. More on AeroPoint activation here.
Access chat support directly via the Mobile App: The 'Get Help' link in the Mobile app now goes directly to chat support. It previously used to go to a support email. This update makes it quicker and easier to connect with our support teams.
Improved rendering of designs: Text within Design files now sticks to the terrain, previously it used to float in a hovering label.
View IFC files in the Mobile App: You can now view IFC files while out in the field using the Mobile App, streamlining the QA process and making it easier to catch errors early on.
Faster performance for large sites in the Platform: decreasing the time it takes to load and interact with the map.
New QR code share survey feature added to the Platform: Scan the QR directly within the Platform by clicking 'View on Mobile' at the top right on your screen to automatically open the survey you are looking at in the Mobile App.
July 2023
We now support Wingtra's RGB61 camera: The RGB61 is a full frame camera powered by Sony Alpha 7R Mark IV and is well integrated with WingtraPilot. It is best suited for Wingtra customers that require short flight times.
Tag yourself in photo comments and receive an email: stay across what's happening on site by easily tagging yourself the comments for photos uploaded using the Media feature.
June 2023
Pin, organize and react to media on the map: capture your reality in real-time, from any device. Learn more about the Media here.
Volumes and heatmaps now available on the Mobile App: You can now create and view heatmaps to see your cut/fill against design and calculate earthwork volumes out on site, without having to return to the office.
Export view as high-resolution JPEGs: Capture and download a map view with all of the desired layers, such as contour lines, heat maps, and line work designs as a high-resolution JPEG. Learn more here.
New filtering explanations during the upload process: we wanted to make it quicker and easier for customers to reduce the chance of error and get surveys processed correctly by providing more clarity and guidance on the recommended filtering options.
May 2023
Clamp layers for designs in the Mobile App: if a design appears to be floating below/above the surface, clamping the design linework to make it appear inline with the ground. This is inline with the desktop Platform.
Share access to your site via Invite links: Easily share access to your site with an invite link at an access level of your choosing. You can also delete and reset, if you ever want to change the link, or stop people from gaining access via a link you sent out previously.
New Platform Home screen: An update to the Home screen in the desktop Platform makes it easier to get to your desired site more quickly. You can now sort and filter sites to quickly view the most recently viewed, last modified, date created, and by A-Z. You can also easily favorite your most frequently used sites and navigate through multiple portals.
Improved point cloud on measurements: See the impact of filtering, better visualize facades, and clearly show that you are measuring on the terrain with this round of updates:
- Add a point cloud opacity slider with range of 0-100% (no value/range label)
- Lower point cloud opacity to 10% when any measurement is being created, edited or viewed
- Put measurement tooltips and labels in front of the point cloud
- Trace on the terrain instead of the point cloud
- Keep the Orthophoto layer checked when Point Cloud is checked
February 2023
New Propeller Mobile App: This new app is an extension of the Propeller Platform and can help you solve problems in the field by using your Propeller data. Key features include:
- Viewing your maps in high quality 3D
- Viewing DXF files on your phone that also show your location
- Measuring distance, area, and elevation with cut/fill to a design surface
- Full support for custom coordinate systems
Learn more about the Mobile App and how to get started here.
Microsoft SSO now available: Sign in using your Microsoft account using personal and business accounts such as OneDrive, Outlook, Sharepoint, and Microsoft 365.
New permissions levels: Inspect and Measure to aid collaboration while providing greater control over user access and activities.
- Inspect: This permission level allows users to view designs and measurements without the ability to edit them.
- Measure: This permission level allows users to make measurements, but they cannot change or delete designs or modify site settings.
New Platform analytics dashboard: Portal admin's can now track activity and usage of the portal, such as the number of sites, users, surveys, uploaded designs, and measurements created for the last 12 months.
January 2023
Export cropped orthophotos of your site from regular or composite surveys: allowing for further analysis in other software applications as a JPEG or GeoTIFF.
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