Mapping Inspection Resources — MIR
All Industries

Rail & Transportation

MIR maps rail corridors from the air — capturing RGB orthomosaics and LiDAR along track, ballast, and right-of-way that reduce boots and foul time on live track.

Rail corridor documented from the air

How MIR Helps

Purpose-Built Data for Rail & Transportation

  • RGB + LiDAR Corridor

    Repeatable capture along track, ballast, and right-of-way in a single pass.

  • Measurable Orthomosaics

    Existing-condition records and progress documentation you can measure from.

  • Clearance Envelope

    LiDAR point clouds that support clearance-envelope analysis along the corridor.

  • Less Foul Time

    Aerial collection minimizes the time crews spend inside foul time near live track.

  • MOW Handoff

    Datasets structured for engineering and maintenance-of-way teams.

CSX freight locomotive number 1776 in Spirit of Our Armed Forces livery leading a train down the tracks through a wooded corridor
Corridor Data Stack

Every Layer of the Corridor

Aerial mapping of live track resolves into a full stack of aligned, georeferenced map products. Step through the same corridor as RGB imagery, raw LiDAR, elevation surfaces, contours, and bare-earth terrain — each measurable and ready for MOW and engineering review.

LiDAR points
192.4M
Aligned layers
5
Georeferencing
RTK
Sensors
RGB + LiDAR

Rail Corridor

One autonomous corridor flight over live track, resolved into five aligned map products — from true-color imagery to bare-earth terrain.

Corridor
Rail
Capture
RGB + LiDAR
Layers
5
True-color RGB orthomosaic of a rail corridor — twin steel rails on gravel ballast flanked by vegetation, captured from directly overhead
Classified LiDAR point cloud of the rail corridor colorized by elevation, resolving the track bed and the height of the adjacent tree canopy
RGB OrthomosaicRGB01 / 05

RTK-referenced true-color orthomosaic — the measurable base map of track, ballast, and right-of-way.

The Workflow

From Flight Plan to MOW Handoff

Every rail & transportation project runs the same repeatable pipeline: missions are planned in UgCS, flown autonomously by AMC (Auterion Mission Control) on American-made Freefly Astro aircraft, then offloaded to the right software — Pix4Dmatic for mapping and photogrammetry, Scopito for inspection findings, and Freefly Flow for in-field LiDAR point clouds.

  1. Step 01UgCS

    Mission Planning

    Corridors are programmed in UgCS with the corridor tool and terrain-aware paths at a fixed Ground Sampling Distance, structuring linear collection along track and ROW.

    UgCS mission-planning screen showing a Freefly Astro LiDAR corridor route over a rail grade crossing, with flight parameters, waypoints, and an elevation profile
  2. Step 02Auterion Mission ControlFreefly

    Field Capture

    The UgCS mission is transferred by USB to the Herelink controller and uploaded to AMC (Auterion Mission Control), which flies the corridor autonomously on American-made Freefly Astro aircraft, capturing high-resolution RGB and LiDAR along track, crossings, and structures. Freefly Flow post-processes the LiDAR on-site to a rough point cloud in minutes, confirming coverage without extended foul time on live track.

    American-made Freefly Astro drone with a gimbal-mounted camera flying an autonomous rail-corridor capture pass at dusk
  3. Step 03PIX4Dmatic

    Processing & Delivery

    RGB imagery is processed into corridor orthomosaics in Pix4Dmatic and LiDAR point clouds are cleaned into clearance-envelope surfaces in point-cloud software — delivered for MOW and engineering review.

    Aerial view of a rail corridor and rolling stock captured during a MIR inspection flight
Services

Services MIR Provides

01

Corridor Mapping & Orthomosaics

RTK-referenced RGB orthomosaics and mapping along track, ballast, and right-of-way.

02

LiDAR Terrain & Clearance Envelope

LiDAR acquisition for terrain, drainage, and clearance-envelope analysis along the corridor.

03

Progress & Existing-Condition Records

Repeatable RGB and LiDAR collection for baselines and change comparison over time.

Deliverables

Corridor data without the foul time

One corridor dataset, clean deliverables. RGB orthomosaics and LiDAR clearance envelopes, georeferenced and ready for MOW and engineering review.

Corridor mapping

RTK-referenced RGB orthomosaics along track, ballast, and right-of-way.

LiDAR clearance envelope

Terrain, drainage, and clearance-envelope surfaces from LiDAR.

Progress & existing conditions

Repeatable captures for baselines and change comparison over time.

American-Made Aerial Intelligence

Start With the Project Objective

Have a Rail & Transportation Project?

Share what needs to be inspected, mapped, measured, or documented. MIR will help determine the right collection method, payload, mission structure, and deliverables.