Reading a Geospatial Deliverable You Did Not Produce

You commissioned a survey. A folder arrived. It contains file types you have never opened and a PDF that says everything went well. Here is how to form a view without becoming a GIS analyst.

Check the metadata exists at all

Coordinate reference system, epoch, units, acquisition date, sensor. If any of these are missing, the rest of the check is moot — an unreferenced dataset is a picture, not a measurement.

Look for an accuracy statement with checkpoints

You want independent checkpoints that were not used to constrain the solution. If the report does not distinguish between control and check, ask. The answer tells you a lot about the supplier.

Open the point cloud, not just the derivatives

You do not need to analyse it. Fly through it and look at the edges of the site, under tree cover, and anywhere the ground changes slope sharply. Problems are visible to a layperson far more often than people expect.

Ask what was interpolated

Every smooth surface hides a decision about what to do where there were no returns. That decision should be documented, not implied.

Suppliers who handle both acquisition and processing, such as GeoShot Technologies, can usually answer all four in one email. Suppliers who cannot are not necessarily bad, but you now know where the risk sits.