STREAM Documentation

STREAM is not photogrammetry software — it consumes the outputs of one. From Pix4D, Agisoft Metashape, DJI Terra or any equivalent, export the elevation model as GeoTIFF, the orthophoto as GeoTIFF, and the point cloud as LAS or LAZ.

Export the elevation model with its coordinate reference system embedded. A GeoTIFF that carries its CRS loads without a decision to make; one that does not will need the system assigned by hand, and assigning the wrong one moves every later measurement.

Decide before export whether you want the surface model or the bare-earth model. A DSM includes buildings and vegetation and is the right surface for a stockpile; a DTM has them removed and is the right surface for a ground volume. Exporting both is usually cheaper than deciding later.

Point lists from a total station or GNSS receiver come in as CSV or TXT with X, Y and Z columns; CAD drawings come in as DXF.

Pick the file from the load dialog. STREAM reads the format, recognises whether it is an elevation raster, an orthophoto, a point cloud or a drawing, and shows progress as a task card.

Before the layer joins the project you are shown the coordinate reference system it read from the file. This is the one moment where a wrong assumption is cheap to fix and expensive to miss — after this point every measurement, every volume and every export inherits it.

On first load the data is converted to a fast native cache. That conversion is why the first open of a large file takes longer than the second, and why reopening the same project afterwards takes seconds.

The application will not start. Check the GPU against Vulkan 1.3 support and update the display driver. A machine with both integrated and discrete graphics should be running STREAM on the discrete card.

A file will not open. Check it against the supported list: GeoTIFF for elevation and imagery, LAS/LAZ for point clouds, DXF for drawings, CSV or TXT for point lists. A GeoTIFF that another tool wrote without georeferencing will open but arrive without a coordinate system.

Layers do not line up. That is almost always a coordinate system difference rather than a data error. Check what each layer reported at load, and remember that assigning a CRS relabels existing coordinates while transforming reprojects them — the first is what you want on a file that lost its metadata, the second is what you want on a file in the wrong system.

A volume looks wrong. Check three things in order: which surface it was computed on (a DSM counts vegetation as material), what it was measured against (reference surface, reference level, or the terrain itself), and whether the figure being compared to it is in-situ or loose volume.

The first load is slow. That is the native cache being built. The same file opens quickly afterwards; if it does not, the cache is being written somewhere it cannot persist.