How to crop or duplicate a composite survey

Composite surveys often have messy edges where individual flights overlap, creating noise in your terrain data. Learn how to crop partial surveys to remove these artifacts and duplicate your composites to test new designs without altering your original site data.

Cropping a composite

When you crop a composite survey, the boundary you draw applies to all data layers within that specific flight.

This includes:

Orthophoto
Terrain
Vertical face imagery (VFI)
Point cloud

ℹ️ Note: This ensures your merged composite looks seamless, without jagged edges or overlapping point clouds where the surveys meet.

How to crop your composite survey?

To get a clean composite, you need to crop the individual flights that make it up.

Choose your composite from the Dataset menu
Navigate to the Survey tab
Under Surveys, find the specific flight you want to crop
Click the three dots next to that survey’s name
Select Crop partial survey

Crop the partial survey by drawing a polygon boundary within the survey's boundary

Click SAVE

The boundary is automatically saved to the composite. You will see the point cloud (if any), VFI (if any), orthophoto, and terrain for that specific flight immediately trim to your new line, revealing the cleaner data underneath.

How to duplicate a composite?

Sometimes you want to test a new design or try different cleanups without altering your main survey. Duplicating allows you to create an exact copy of your current state, including all crops and cleanups.

Choose your composite from the Dataset menu
Find the composite you want to duplicate in the list
Click the three dots next to the composite name
Select Duplicate

Give it a name (e.g., "Copy of Composite Survey") and check the date/time
Click CREATE

Your new composite is now a standalone file. You can edit, crop, or measure it without affecting the original.

FAQs

If I crop a partial survey, does it affect my exported files?

It depends on how you export them:

Visuals & Measurements (Yes): Any measurements, surfaces (DXF, TTM), or files exported from the Measurements tab will respect your new boundaries. This is the best way to get a "clean" export.
Raw Outputs (No): The original source files (like the raw LAS/LAZ point cloud) downloaded from the Outputs tab remain untouched. Propeller does not permanently delete data from your original upload.

I still can't do it!

We wrote these articles to equip you with everything you need to get the job done on your own, but we understand that sometimes this isn't sufficient.

If you're stuck, you can connect with our support team by clicking the question mark button at the top right corner of your user portal.

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