Featured Interview with Diodrone’s Founder
Recently, Diodrone’s founder, Zack Wasson spent some time with the Sydney Build Expo team to answer a few questions about the drone industry and how Diodrone stands out from the rest.
What is it that your company does exactly? What is your main USP and how do you feel that you stand out from the crowd?
The success of industry’s move towards digital engineering is dependent on a number of factors, but one key requirement is good data. And that’s where Diodrone is making a difference. We’re a team of engineers and surveyors, focusing our efforts on finding new and innovative ways to capture, process and present spatial and visual data for the infrastructure and construction sectors. We utilise laser scanning, LiDAR, photogrammetry and bunch of other technologies to create immersive survey, inspection and monitoring solutions. Our high precision aerial surveys – combining conventional ground survey, drone LiDAR and photogrammetry – are absolutely changing the game for our clients.
Over the coming 12 months what do you have planned in terms of launches or new initiatives?
We see laser scanning becoming a bigger part of what we do. Drone LiDAR and photogrammetry have proven super beneficial to our clients, but it’s generally limited to outdoor areas. Our recent successes on a few laser scanning projects is proving that these data types, are just as beneficial to indoor environments. Oh, and a second Diodrone office to better support our interstate clients is also on the cards… but I can’t say too much on that just yet.
What are the biggest opportunities and challenges facing the construction industry this year?
In my sphere of awareness, the biggest opportunities for the industry lie in better and more widespread adoption of digital engineering… from better documenting of construction at greenfield sites to capturing baselines and digital asset inventories of brownfield sites. Single source of truth across these very large, very complex projects and organisations improves efficiencies and reduces risk at so many levels.
Who has impressed you most in the industry and why?
The guys and girls over at PropellerAero have accomplished some incredible things in the past few years… a great success story if ever there was one.
What’s your biggest achievement/proudest moment (in and out of the industry)?
We recently completed a really complex drone LiDAR survey for the RMS over a section of the Putty Road. In the field, the Diodrone team executed an incredible operation which really was the culmination of everything we’ve learnt over the past 4 years: drone operations, LiDAR, and ground survey, all working together to create an incredibly detailed and accurate spatial data set. That project is so much more than an incremental improvement to the way road corridor survey is carried out… it’s a total step change.
What do you do to let off steam?
When the winds are right, you’ll find me letting off steam in my paraglider. When the winds are wrong, I’m usually rock climbing, mountain biking or trail running.
Read the full interview here and find out more about Sydney Build Expo.
