The Texas Dept. of Transportation has benchmarked and adopted an iPhone app to measure its stockpiles. The app works by uploading a video of the stockpile to a cloud server, which turns the data into a 3D model to calculate its volume.
Stockpile Reports Inc., Redmond, Wash., developed an app of the same name for aggregate suppliers measuring stockpiles 3,000 cu yd and larger, says Mark Bradshaw, TxDOT procurement administration manager. "They documented accuracy of plus or minus 2% on these large stockpiles" but reported a lower accuracy for piles smaller than 100 cu yd, he says. For stockpiles smaller than 100 cu yd, Bradshaw's team did its own tests on the app against light detection and ranging (LIDAR), GPS and employee measurements and confirmed its accuracy to be plus or minus 1.5%. Bradshaw adds that the app is easy to use and accurate and improves safety.