From design to measured progress

From design to measured progress

How Omniris lays the design and the schedule over every drone survey, measures how much of the work is really in place, has a person approve it, and hands that progress back to your Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project schedule — working alongside Procore and Autodesk Forma, with every step on the record.

Summary

Every construction site is described three ways: the design says what will be built, the schedule says when, and the site itself shows what is really there, captured by a drone every week. Omniris now holds all three in one place.

The design is placed on the site in the right position and at the right height. Each schedule activity is linked to the parts of the design it builds. Each survey-grade flight (one whose positions are tied to known survey points) measures those parts against the design, a person approves the result, and it adds up to percent complete, a forecast finish and earned value. That progress then goes back into your schedule file, and your files and issues are shared with Procore or Autodesk Forma.

Why plans and the site drift apart

Most projects already fly their sites. The imagery is rarely the problem. The problem is everything between the flight and the schedule:

• The design and the survey don't line up. Designs are usually drawn in a local survey grid (such as State Plane) with heights above sea level. Drone positions come from GPS, with heights measured a different way. The two can disagree by several feet sideways and tens of feet in height. Compared without converting, every number is wrong.
• Progress is reported, not measured. Percent complete comes from someone's judgment at a weekly meeting, not from what is physically in place.
• The schedule never hears about it. Even when progress is measured, someone types it back into Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project by hand, activity by activity.
• The site team works somewhere else. Issues live in Procore or Autodesk Forma, deliverables are emailed, and the record of who saw what, and when, is scattered.

Omniris keeps the design, the schedule, the measurements and the approvals together, in the same secure vault and under the same tamper-evident record (the chain of custody) as the flights that produced them.

From design file to approved progress

Bringing in the design

Omniris reads four design formats and turns each into the same thing: a set of named objects on the site — walls, slabs, piers, barriers, road and rail alignments — each with its properties, its quantities and its 3D shape.

• Nothing is silently dropped. Some CAD content can't be read: AutoCAD 3D solids, Civil 3D objects such as surfaces and alignments, MicroStation SmartSolids and OpenRoads objects, and points. Each one is listed with the reason and the export that recovers it (LandXML for surfaces, IFC for solids and civil models). Text, dimensions and drawing sheets are counted, so you know they were there.
• Revisions are matched, not re-imported. Each object keeps its identity from the design file. A revised design is reported object by object as unchanged, changed, new or removed, and the earlier version is kept with its history. If almost every object looks new (some design software renumbers its objects on export), the import stops and asks before treating them as new.
• On the map and in 3D. The design is drawn over every flight in the Site Navigator, coloured by object type; click any object to see its details. It is also overlaid on the site's 3D models, lined up in position and height.
• Outside files are opened safely. Design and schedule files are opened in a sealed-off reader with no network access and no access to other data, so a damaged or malicious file can't reach the rest of the system. If any of those protections is missing, imports are refused.

Positions and heights you can trust

Comparing a design with a survey is only as good as the coordinates behind both. Omniris never guesses them.

• The design states its coordinate system. When a design is imported, the person importing it picks its coordinate system — a standard code (an EPSG number) such as a State Plane zone, a project ground system using the scale factor printed on the plan sheets, or a full written definition — plus its height reference (for example NAVD88) and its unit. US survey feet and international feet are separate choices: they differ by 2 parts per million, which adds up to several feet at State Plane distances. DWG, DXF and DGN files don't record where they sit on the earth, so for them this choice is required.
• Every flight states its frame. Each flight records the coordinate frame and height system it was captured in. An RTK drone (one using real-time GPS corrections) is in whatever frame its corrections came from, so each site states that once — WGS84/ITRF, NAD83(2011), NAD83(PA11) or ETRF2000 — and whether the correction base sat on a known survey point. There is no default: until it is set, RTK flights on that site are not graded.
• Converted point by point. The survey is converted into the design's own system and heights across a fine grid, using the official conversions and geoid models (GEOID18 for the lower 48 states, GEOID12B for Alaska, the Polish 2021 geoid), never one offset for the whole site. California designs also state which of the state's two NAD83(2011) dates (epochs) they use.

Very large and encrypted designs

A design too big for the standard import is not turned away. It is processed on a larger machine sized for that file, based on the memory each format needs, and then saved. The import window shows both size limits up front. While the import runs it shows the current stage, the progress and the cost so far ("Processing so far: N machine-hours (about $X of compute)").

• No arbitrary limits. There is no time limit. Instead, the import is watched for progress: if it stalls, it is restarted, and it fails only if it stalls again at the same point. If it needs more memory than estimated, it moves to a bigger machine by itself. Only a file too big for the largest machine available is refused, with its size and the memory it would need.
• Waits rather than cancels when the cloud is busy. If no machine of the right size is free, the import waits and shows the reason the cloud gives. It is never squeezed onto a smaller machine.
• Encrypted designs, at any size. A design in an encrypted folder can be imported once Omniris confirms, using the importing person's own sign-in, that they are allowed to open it. The decrypted copy is used only for the import and deleted afterwards. The access check, the decryption and the deletion are each recorded in the file's chain of custody.

Design against as-built

The design itself can be the surface a survey is measured against. You choose which objects make up that surface: all of them, one type (such as the slabs or a pavement layer), one layer or level, or just the objects inside the area you are checking. Their top faces form the surface.

• Volume against the design. In Map Tools → Volume, choose "Design surface" as the base to get cut, fill and net volumes, each with its ± uncertainty. A saved measurement keeps measuring every new flight against the same design version and the same objects, even after a revised design is imported.
• Compare against the design. In the Site Navigator, Compare's Design mode compares one survey with the design: cut where the ground is above the design (material to remove), fill where it is below (material to place), shown as a red and blue cut/fill layer on the map. A design has no measurement error, so only the survey's ± is counted, and the result says how much of the survey area the chosen objects cover.

Schedules

A project schedule from Primavera P6 (an XER export or P6 XML) or Microsoft Project (an .mpp file or Project XML) comes in as the site's activities, with their work breakdown structure (WBS — the schedule's grouping of activities), dates, links between activities, calendars, costs and baselines. Each activity keeps its activity ID or task ID, so an updated schedule is matched activity by activity.

• Updates never merge silently. When a site already has schedules, the import asks, for each project in the file, whether it is a new schedule or replaces an existing one, and shows how many of its activity IDs each existing schedule already has. Schedules built from the same template share IDs, so it picks one for you only when the match is clear.
• History is kept. An update reports which activities are new, kept and removed. Removed ones are kept with their history, never deleted.
• Baselines. P6 XML and Project files carry their own baseline. An XER file can't, so the first version you import becomes the baseline, and the Gantt chart says so.
• A fast Gantt chart. The Gantt chart draws only the rows on screen, so it stays quick with 10,000 activities or more. It shows bars filled to percent complete, the baseline, actual dates, the critical path, the data date and the links between activities.

Measuring progress

Design objects are linked to the activities that build them — picked on the map, selected by drawing around an area, or matched by a rule. Each link says how the object counts: by count, length, area, volume, mass or percent. Length, area and volume come from the design; a mass is entered by hand. After each flight, each linked object is measured in one of three ways:

• Only survey-grade flights measure grade: RTK with network or known-point corrections, or surveyed ground control points. If the tolerance is tighter than the flight can measure, the object is marked "survey too coarse for this tolerance" instead of being given a number.
• Measured values are proposals until approved. Nothing proposed counts in percent complete, forecasts or reports. One approval covers a whole flight and writes one tamper-evident approval record, with a fingerprint of exactly what was approved. A reviewer can also reject a single value or replace it with their own.
• Manual entries count as soon as they are saved, because a person made them.
• Recording rights for field staff. An organization manager can let specific members — pilots, viewers, field crews — record progress on one site, and nothing else: no approving, no linking, no access to other folders. The right ends automatically if they leave the organization.

How far along, and when it will finish

The Progress panel adds approved values up through each WBS group to the whole project:

• Percent complete against percent planned, and a forecast finish against the planned finish. Once an activity has two or more approved measurements, its forecast uses the rate the crew is actually achieving, and late activities push back the ones that follow them.
• SPI(t), the schedule performance index from earned schedule: above 1 means ahead, below 1 means behind.
• Earned value — budget, planned value, earned value — when the schedule carries costs. Actual cost and CPI (the cost performance index) appear only when the schedule carries actual costs, because a drone measures work in place, not spending.
• Activities with no linked objects are not left out. They use the schedule's own percent complete, labelled "from the schedule", at their normal weight. Weights default to planned duration (or to cost) and always add up to 100%.
• Colour by progress on the map and in 3D: not started, in progress, complete, behind, and waiting for approval.
• A PDF report in English or Polish, in the reader's units, covering the summary, the WBS groups and every activity.

Back to the schedule

Export to schedule writes the approved progress into a copy of your schedule file, which your scheduler then imports into Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project. For each activity with approved measurements it writes the physical percent complete, the actual start and the actual finish. Omniris never writes into your scheduling system directly.

• Your file is edited, not rebuilt. For an XER, P6 XML or Project XML file, only those values change and everything else is kept exactly as it was — other projects, codes, resources, notes, layout, accented names. An .mpp file comes back as a Project XML file, which Microsoft Project opens directly.
• Every export comes with a change list (spreadsheet and PDF): each value written, with its old and new value, any activities the file doesn't contain, and notes.
• Late entries are not lost. The next export lists, as "since last export", values approved after the previous export — including manual entries recorded later but dated earlier.
• Filed and recorded. Each export is saved in a folder next to the schedule and recorded in the chain of custody with the file's fingerprint. If a newer version of the schedule has been imported since, the export says so.

On the phone, with or without signal

In the Omniris Pilot phone app, a Site Progress card on the Home screen lists the sites with a design you can see, and shows on each whether you can record progress there. A site opens on a map of its design objects coloured by status, or as a list of activities.

• Recording is quick. Tap an object, mark it done or 25 / 50 / 75%, or type a percentage. Add photos, a voice note (turned into text) and a written note.
• No signal, no problem. An entry and its photos are saved on the phone and sent automatically once it's back online, however long that takes. A dropped connection never loses an entry or records it twice.
• Sites saved for offline use keep the design objects, the schedule's activities and, where your Omniris server offers one, a street map of the site and about 1.4 mi (2.2 km) around it. Satellite imagery is never saved to the phone. You can remove a saved site by hand, and it is removed automatically if you lose access to it.

Procore and Autodesk Forma

You connect your Procore or Autodesk account from the Integrations tab of your Account page; an organization's account is connected by one of its managers. The connection acts as the person who connected it. Its sign-in is stored encrypted and renewed automatically. If Procore or Autodesk stops accepting it, the managers are emailed and anything waiting to be sent is held until it is reconnected. Each site is then linked to a Procore project, or to a Forma project and folder.

• No echoes. A change that comes in from Procore is never sent back to Procore, and Omniris recognizes its own changes when they come back, so an edit never bounces between systems. A site linked to both Procore and Forma settles after one pass each way. Each change is applied once, even when Procore reports it several times.
• Encrypted files stay in Omniris unless someone releases them. When you send a folder, protected files are skipped and listed "Protected — not sent", and protected pictures never travel with a finding. Someone allowed to open a protected file can release it on purpose; the release — who, when and exactly where it went — is recorded in the file's chain of custody, because once outside Omniris the copy is no longer protected.

In practice: a new finding in Omniris goes to Procore as an Observation, and files you send go to the project's Documents. A status change, a comment or a new Observation made in Procore comes back into Omniris, through Procore's change notifications or the 5-minute check. A new Observation arrives as a finding marked "Location needed" (Procore Observations carry no map position) until someone places it on the map.

On the record

Every step that changes what a project claims is sealed into the same tamper-evident chain of custody that protects the survey imagery: each design import; each decryption of an encrypted design and the deletion of its temporary copy; each progress approval, with a fingerprint of the values approved; each schedule export, with the exported file's fingerprint; and each release of a protected file to Procore or Forma. A reviewer can trace any number in a progress report back to the flight it was measured on, the design version it was measured against, and the person who approved it.

Where it runs

The same features run on every Omniris edition: in the cloud (Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud), in the Omniris data center, and on-premises on your own hardware. Larger processing machines come from each edition's own computing resources — cloud machines sized for each job, or the on-premises site's own processing servers. On an on-premises installation you register your own Procore and Autodesk apps, and the site must be served over HTTPS (a secure web address) to connect them.

What a measurement claims, and what it doesn't

• Grade is measured on survey-grade flights only. Flights without survey-grade positioning, and RTK flights on a site whose correction frame isn't set, are not graded.
• "Built to grade" is the share of the footprint within tolerance, not a certification. When the survey can't measure that finely, the object says so.
• A drone measures work in place, not spending. Actual cost and CPI appear only when the schedule carries actual costs.
• The scheduling tool decides what it uses. Physical percent complete written into a schedule is used only for activities set to use it (see the note above).
• Some CAD content isn't read. AutoCAD 3D solids, Civil 3D objects and MicroStation SmartSolids are listed with the export that recovers them, not converted.
• Procore's schedule is read, never written. Progress reaches Procore as an exported schedule file your scheduler imports.
• Forma has no embedded panel and no schedule to read. Older BIM 360 projects are listed but can't be linked.
• The offline street map needs your Omniris server to offer one. Everything else on the phone works offline regardless.

Where it matters

Standards

Glossary

Approval

A person's confirmation that a flight's measured values count, sealed into the chain of custody with a fingerprint of what was approved.

BIM and IFC

Building information modelling: a 3D design in which every element carries its own data. IFC is the open file format for exchanging those models.

Chain of custody

Omniris' tamper-evident record of who did what to each file and measurement, and when.

Design object

One named element of an imported design — a slab, a pier, a barrier — with its properties, quantities and shape.

Design surface

The top faces of the chosen design objects, used as the reference a survey is measured against.

Geoid

The model that converts GPS (ellipsoid) heights into heights above sea level such as NAVD88; the two can differ by tens of feet.

Link

The connection between a schedule activity and a design object that builds it, with how the object counts toward the activity.

Physical percent complete

A schedule's measure of work physically in place, separate from duration-based progress.

RTK

Real-time kinematic positioning: satellite positioning corrected to within about half an inch (a centimetre or two) by a base station or network.

SPI(t)

The earned-schedule performance index: earned schedule divided by actual time; above 1 is ahead.

Survey-grade (controlled) flight

A flight whose positions are tied to known survey points: RTK with network or known-point corrections, or surveyed ground control.

Tolerance

How far from the design height the surveyed surface may be for that part of an object to count as at grade.

WBS

Work breakdown structure: the way a schedule groups its activities, for example by area, phase or trade.