Fictional building. All data, imagery, and findings are illustrative. This case study shows the full workflow arc from problem to engineering deliverable.
The structural engineering firm held the inspection contract and had its own elevation drawings. What they needed was systematic drone coverage of each face, with every floor-bay zone documented with both RGB and thermal and organized so their engineer of record could work through each zone methodically without managing hundreds of loose image files.
The building's masonry construction required both RGB capture (surface condition, cracking, spalling, staining) and thermal capture (subsurface moisture, delamination, potential void behind the facade plane). Scaffolding access for this scope of coverage would have required a multi-day sidewalk bridge installation.
Each building face received two flight passes at different altitudes. The first pass covered the lower floors at close range; the second covered the upper floors and parapet zone. A DJI drone with RGB and thermal cameras captured both simultaneously, with the thermal file auto-pairing to RGB by sequential filename index.
Images were sorted into face/floor/bay directories on-site and verified against the elevation drawing before the next face was flown. Any zones with incomplete coverage were reflown before leaving the site.
The firm's elevation drawings were loaded into DMC's authoring tool as base layers. A grid was applied to each drawing to match the floor and bay structure, adjusted to align with the actual structural grid visible in the elevation, not a uniform default. Each grid cell becomes an inspection zone that the engineer can click to view imagery.
For the north facade: 4 bays × 4 zones (Ground through Parapet) = 16 zones. For the east facade: 3 bays × 3 zones (Ground through 3rd Floor) = 9 zones.
All findings above are fictional and illustrative. The interactive demo contains this pre-populated data. Open any zone to see the full annotation interface.
The deliverable zip is sent to the engineer of record by email or shared drive. The engineer
unzips it, opens viewer.html in any browser, and works through the building
face-by-face. The engineering drawing is visible with the grid overlay. Each zone is
color-coded by image coverage (green = RGB + thermal, yellow = RGB only, red = no images).
Clicking any zone opens the image pair in a lightbox.
The engineer assigns condition ratings, selects observation categories from the FISP standard list, adds inspection notes, draws annotations directly on the imagery, and flags zones for follow-up. All of this is saved to a JSON file that reloads cleanly in a subsequent session. No cloud sync required.
When the assessment is complete, the engineer exports a CSV for all zones and generates a print report (one page per face, with the annotated drawing and a notes table) that feeds into their final inspection report to the authority having jurisdiction.
Images arrive sorted by face, floor, and bay. The engineer doesn't sift through a folder of 200 unsorted drone shots. They click a zone and the relevant pair is there.
Annotations, ratings, and notes are saved with timestamps and project identifiers. The print report is formatted for inclusion in a professional inspection package.
The viewer is an HTML file. It works on any laptop with any browser. No account, no license, no internet connection. The firm can hand it to a client or subconsultant without any setup instructions.
Same process, same deliverable format on every building. Engineering staff who've used it on one project know exactly what to expect on the next one. The pipeline is not project-specific.
All the sample findings above are pre-loaded. Open any zone, add annotations, export the CSV, or run the print report.
Open Interactive Demo