Reality-capture delivery starts by deciding what the recipient actually needs. A project can contain source photographs, scanner data, trajectories, registered point clouds, orthomosaics, elevation models, meshes, textures, reports, and BIM exports. Curate a contracted delivery, choose streamable formats where useful, transfer it with visible status and verification, and reserve physical media for source or archive volumes that miss the calendar.
Inventory a multi-format project
Reality capture is broader than LiDAR. Photogrammetry volume grows with image count and resolution, processing creates large working files, terrestrial scanning accumulates by setup, and derived surfaces or textures can rival the source data. Measure each class separately:
- raw photographs, scan files, trajectories, calibration, and control;
- registered or classified point clouds in LAS, LAZ, E57, or vendor formats;
- orthomosaics, DEMs, DSMs, meshes, textures, and 3D Tiles;
- reports, metadata, tile indexes, manifests, and client application files.
Vendor requirements illustrate the scale without defining a universal project. In PIX4Dmatic's product-specific hardware guidance as accessed August 10, 2026, Pix4D says 2,000–5,000 20 MP images need at least 32 GB RAM and 150–300 GB of free SSD space; 5,000–10,000 need 64 GB RAM and 300–450 GB. Pix4D says those disk figures exclude input images and exported results, testing covered up to 10,000 images, larger datasets should be split, and mesh export significantly increases storage. These are requirements and recommendations for that product, not general photogrammetry rules.
Leica's RTC360 firmware v4.0 release notes, accessed August 10, 2026, list vendor-stated scan data of roughly 40 MB, 151 MB, and 587 MB per setup at low, medium, and high resolution for that firmware. Four hundred high-resolution setups would therefore be about 235 decimal GB of scan data before imagery or registered outputs. DJI's Zenmuse L2 FAQ as accessed August 10, 2026 states up to 240,000 points/second in single-return mode and 1.2 million in multiple-return mode under the vendor's product conditions. These dated vendor figures explain why field storage and transfer planning matter; they are not typical project claims or cross-device benchmarks.
Choose one of four delivery patterns
Deliver everything when the contract requires source acquisition data or the recipient will reprocess. This preserves flexibility but maximizes bytes, software dependencies, and acceptance work. Keep the archive responsibility explicit.
Deliver derived products only when the client needs an ortho, DEM, mesh, model, or classified point cloud rather than the source project. This is often more usable and smaller, but it limits later reprocessing. Document what was excluded.
Deliver streamable or subsettable data when the recipient needs interactive access rather than every source byte. OGC 3D Tiles is designed for streaming heterogeneous 3D geospatial content, including photogrammetry, BIM/CAD, and point clouds. COPC provides HTTP range access to spatial subsets from one clustered-octree LAZ 1.4 file. Confirm that the client's viewer and hosting arrangement support the chosen format.
Deliver physically when online upload and download do not fit the deadline or connectivity is unavailable. Include staging, copying, courier time, recipient copy-off, and verification. Microsoft currently positions Azure Data Box for limited-connectivity datasets above 40 TB and lists 120 TB and 525 TB usable devices. Those August 2026 options depend on region and availability; the threshold is provider guidance, not a universal rule.
A hybrid often works best: send a curated client package online while source imagery and scans continue in the background or travel on verified media.
Package for the recipient, not the capture team
Confirm software, versions, CRS, horizontal and vertical datums, units, level of detail, coordinate precision, texture paths, and tile conventions. Include a README and manifest with relative paths, byte sizes, integrity values, and excluded source classes.
Use E57 when a supported terrestrial/AEC workflow benefits from a vendor-neutral container for points, imagery, and metadata. Use LAS or LAZ for agreed point-cloud interchange, COPC for single-file subset access, and 3D Tiles for a supported streaming presentation. A construction client may also need BIM coordination outputs, but that does not make the capture and construction workflows identical; use the construction reality-capture guide for contract and stakeholder context.
The LiDAR dataset delivery checklist covers CRS, units, tiling, metadata, access, verification, and acceptance even when the package includes more than LiDAR.
Make remote delivery observable
Stage one immutable release folder. Assign an owner, measure its full byte count, and compare sender upload plus recipient download with the deadline. Test source read, destination write, and representative client files. The transfer-time calculator models the network legs with a 12% planning allowance, while the shipping-versus-transfer calculator compares the wider timelines.
Grant access to identified recipients with read-only permissions, a useful but finite window, HTTPS, and a revocation path. Microsoft recommends user-delegation SAS where possible for Azure Storage and short expiry where revocation is constrained. Provider guidance is not evidence of a specific implementation.
Require the recipient to compare the manifest, verify integrity, and open representative outputs in the intended tools. Keep the authoritative source until acceptance. State who owns the archive and when temporary transfer copies may be removed.
Where TeraAirlift fits
TeraAirlift is a Windows-first desktop operations console for online file and folder delivery. Current repository-supported capabilities include queues, progress and ETA, cancellation, retry-friendly operations, history, diagnostics, recipient-controlled delivery, short-lived storage access, and SHA-256 verification. This gives distributed field, processing, and project staff a shared operational record without promising throughput or an SLA. It complements, rather than replaces, project storage and archives.
Review the LiDAR and reality-capture workflow, large LiDAR operating guide, and remote large-footage workflow when designing the complete path.
