If you’re familiar with mapping, you’ve no doubt heard talk of ground control points (GCPs). Used often in the surveying industry, as well as in virtual design and construction, GCPs greatly increase the global accuracy of drone maps. Although they are not necessary in every situation, GCPs are a vital tool for precision mapping. But what exactly are ground control points?

Ground control points are large marked targets on the ground, spaced strategically throughout your area of interest.  It might be helpful to think of your GCPs as a series of thumbtacks placed on your drone map. Because the drone mapping software knows the exact location of each of these “thumbtacks”, it can reference their locations when it matches up all of the other points on the map.

When used correctly, ground control points greatly improve the global accuracy of your drone map. That is to say, they help ensure that the latitude and longitude of any point on your map corresponds accurately with actual GPS coordinates. This is important in situations where precision mapping and true global accuracy are needed. As we mentioned above, surveying companies generally use GCPs, because a high level of global accuracy is important in most of the work that they do. Virtual design and construction is another sector that often requires this level of precision drone mapping.

It is now possible for enterprise and business users to process ground control points directly in SkyCam.io’s partner platform.