At a glance: 2Rent and Point One compressed a three-week, £40,000 surveying process into three days of work with a new handheld RTK-enabled phone-compatible surveying device.
The £40,000 Bottleneck
Construction sites need constant monitoring. Track placement verification. Material positioning. Structural alignment checks. Progress documentation. Dispute resolution.
For decades, this meant the same expensive ritual: hire a survey team, rent specialised equipment, wait days for them to arrive, wait weeks for data processing, then finally get actionable information when it’s often too late to prevent costly mistakes.
2Rent, a UK equipment rental specialist, watched their construction and infrastructure clients struggle with this bottleneck repeatedly. The surveying workflow hadn’t evolved in decades, even as project timelines accelerated and budgets tightened.
The opportunity was obvious: make professional-grade surveying mobile, immediate, and affordable. The challenge was equally obvious: the GNSS receiver built into a smartphone is accurate to 5-10 metres. Professional surveying requires centimetre-level precision. That’s not a small gap to bridge.
RTK via Cellphone Changes the Economics
2Rent partnered with Vigram, a German mobile measurement developer, to integrate their viDoc®, a GNSS hardware device developed by Vigram that attaches to an iPhone and, paired with dedicated software, transforms it into a professional-grade surveying instrument. The critical piece? Point One Navigation’s RTK correction network.
Standard GNSS relies on satellite signals alone, accumulating errors from atmospheric interference and signal errors. RTK uses a network of ground-based reference stations to correct those errors in real-time, delivering centimetre-level accuracy to mobile devices.
The result: Professional surveying capability on a device that fits in a pocket — without the £30,000–£50,000 equipment investment or years of specialised training.
Real-world application
Generator Site, Northern Ireland: A construction project required daily site monitoring: equipment placement, material positioning, and progress tracking. Traditional surveying would mean mobilising a specialist team at significant cost, with processed data arriving days later.
With the viDoc® and Point One’s RTK network, the site was captured piece by piece throughout the day, scanning scheduled in stages without interrupting site productivity. The centimetre-level accuracy ensured all assets were correctly placed in the final model, eliminating the need for manual alignment.
Data captured by the viDoc® is processed in the cloud and delivered as a fully visualised 3D model to the back-office, available the same day. The project team gains a precise, actionable picture of site progress without waiting days for a survey team to mobilise, capture, and process.
The math: A project consuming 2-3 weeks of traditional surveying compressed into 2-3 days. Centimetre-level accuracy. Radically different timeline.
Labour costs: The Metric That Matters Most
viDoc® using Point One RTK captures and verifies survey data in 10 minutes versus 30-40 minutes with conventional equipment. That’s a 4x speed improvement.
But speed alone misses the larger shift:
Hardware investment reduced: At only a few thousand pounds, the viDoc® replaces the need for £30,000–£50,000 traditional surveying rigs
Labour costs reduced: A single day of viDoc® training replaces years of specialised surveying education
Survey-grade capability in every team’s hands: The viDoc® puts professional-grade GNSS tools within reach of any operator, opening the door to remote supervision where site data flows back to the office not as a spreadsheet, but as a fully visualised 3D model
Post-processing efficiency: Data is processed in the cloud and can be available as a complete 3D model the same day — versus days or weeks with traditional survey workflows
Workforce flexibility: Non-specialists can perform tasks that previously required professional surveyors
Single point measurements can achieve centimetre-level accuracy. The economics are completely transformed.
Democratising Precision
2Rent isn’t trying to replace all professional surveyors. The company is making surveying accessible to organisations and projects that previously couldn’t justify the cost.
Routine monitoring? Now it is economical. Progress verification? Now it is continuous. Site documentation? Now it delivers a fully visualised 3D model, the same day.
Professional surveyors shift from data collection to complex analysis. Construction managers get the information they need when they need it. Small projects that couldn’t afford traditional surveying now get professional-grade accuracy.
The viDoc® hardware captures the data. Post-processing is handled in the cloud, with clients free to use their preferred solution, whether that’s Bentley’s iTwin platform, drone software such as Propeller, or 2Rent’s own pipeline. The infrastructure and construction industries are expanding their networks, rolling out training programmes, and deploying GNSS-enabled mobile surveying across UK and European markets.
When Technology Eliminates Excuses
The construction industry has always known that better site monitoring improves outcomes. More frequent measurements prevent mistakes. Real-time data enables faster decisions. Continuous documentation resolves disputes before they become expensive.
The barrier was never desire. It’s always been economics.
Point One’s RTK network, integrated into mobile platforms like viDoc®, removes that barrier. Professional surveying accuracy becomes accessible, affordable, and immediate.
2Rent saw a market stuck with outdated tools and built a solution that changes what’s possible. Precision location technology makes it work.
Ready to put survey-grade GNSS in the hands of your team? Point One Navigation’s RTK network delivers centimetre-level accuracy, without the specialist team or the wait.