Cropping your survey removes distorted edges caused by poor photo overlap, ensuring accurate site measurements. Learn how to crop survey data by drawing new boundaries, copying from previous flights, or uploading KML files to keep your Propeller Platform data clean, professional, and ready for use.
Who can crop a survey?
Users with Process permissions can crop a survey. If you don't have access, ask your portal owner to update your permissions in Organization settings > Sites & access.
How to crop your survey
- Find the specific flight you want to trim
- Navigate to the Survey tab on the left-hand menu.
- Click the Crop button.
- The editing window will appear with options to draw, copy, or upload a boundary.
| 💡Tip: Crop your survey right after it has finished processing, so it is clean and ready for your team to use immediately. |
Option 1: Draw a new boundary
This is the standard way to clean up a site.
- Click on the map to start drawing your outline around the area you want to keep.
- Continue clicking to place points around your site.
- To finish, either click back on your first point or hit Enter/Return on your keyboard to close the shape.
- Click Save to apply the crop.
| 💡Tip: Made a mistake? Click a point and drag it to move it, or select a point and hit Delete on your keyboard to remove it. |
Option 2: Copy from another survey
If you have a standard boundary for your site (like a project perimeter), you don't need to redraw it every time.
- In the Crop menu, click the dropdown under Copy crop from.
- Select the date of the survey you want to copy.
- You can then edit the boundary as needed or click SAVE to apply it as is.
| ℹ️ Note: Any edits made to the copied boundary will only affect the current survey. The original survey's boundary will not change. |
Option 3: Upload a KML file
You can import a boundary created in Google Earth or another GIS tool.
- Click UPLOAD .KML in the crop window.
- Select the file from your computer.
- Click SAVE.
Editing or deleting a crop
Need to adjust your boundary later?
- Go to the Survey tab.
- Click the three dots next to the applied crop boundary.
- Select Edit crop to adjust the points, or Delete crop to remove it entirely.
Cropping composite surveys
This tool is powerful for Composite Surveys. If you apply a crop to a partial survey inside a composite, that crop will trim all layers of the survey. This ensures your merged composite looks seamless, without jagged edges where the surveys overlap.
FAQs
Which layers does the crop apply to?
The crop applies to all layers: Orthophoto, Terrain, Point Cloud, and Vertical Face Imagery (VFI).
Does the crop apply to my exported files? It depends on where you download them.
- Outputs Tab: No. Files downloaded from the Outputs tab are the original (raw) files and will not include the crop.
- Measurement Tab: Yes. To export the cropped surface, you must use the Measurement tab workflow. Since the Site Crop boundary cannot be directly converted into a measurement, you will need to manually draw a polygon around the area you wish to export. You can trace along the edges of your crop, or draw a larger box around the area. The export will automatically clip to the crop boundary.
Are crops included in Point Cloud exports?
Yes. The Point Cloud export will be trimmed to the crop boundary.
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