Composite Surveys is a powerful tool — but there are a few limitations and behaviors worth knowing before you dive in. This article covers what to watch for so you can build accurate, reliable composites every time.
Whether you're working with full survey datasets or individual image sets from separate flights, the same principles apply.
For a walkthrough of how to create and view composites, see Getting started with Composite Surveys.
Terrain Cleanups
Terrain cleanups let you remove inaccuracies from your terrain model — things like vehicles, stockpiles, or bridges — so your earthwork quantities stay accurate.
A couple of things to know:
- Terrain cleanups are not yet available directly on a composite survey, but any cleanup applied to a partial survey will automatically flow through and render on the composite
- After applying a terrain cleanup to a partial survey, you may need to refresh your composite to see the update — allow up to 5 minutes for it to fully render
| Original partial survey | Terrain Cleanup added to original partial survey |
| Terrain Cleanup passed through to Composite Survey | |
Measurements & comparisons
Composite surveys sit directly on the base map rather than a survey map. This doesn't affect your measurements, but it does affect how comparisons work:
- All comparisons between a composite and a design surface use the most recent partial survey in any given area
- This also applies to overlapping partial surveys — if two surveys cover the same area, the more recent one takes precedence
- If you need to compare against an older survey in an overlapping area, edit the boundaries to remove the overlap
Point cloud data
You can create a composite from terrain generated using point cloud data. However, you cannot export the merged point cloud from the composite itself — point cloud exports are only available from the original partial surveys.
Deleting partial surveys
This one's important: if you delete a partial survey that's been included in a composite, it will be removed from the composite too. Creating a composite does not create an independent copy of the partial survey data.
| ℹ️ Note: To avoid accidental data loss, do not delete partial surveys — even if they've already been used in a composite. |
Dataset merge limit
You can merge up to 25 datasets/image sets into a single composite survey.
Have more questions? Check out our Composite Surveys FAQs for more detail.
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