From Camopi to Saint-Laurent: seven years of aerial imaging for TDF sites in French Guiana
TDF deploys the towers that carry the operators’ antennas in French Guiana. Before building or equipping a site, its deployment team needs images taken from the height of the antenna: what can be seen from up there, at what height to place the equipment, how the future tower will fit into the landscape. Since 2019 we have been supplying those images, from the Oyapock to Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni.
2019: four antennas on the Oyapock
In March 2019 the first order covered four sites between Saint-Georges and Camopi. For each one we delivered overall views, photogrammetric shots, a 3D model and an orthophoto plan, with the position and relative height of the antennas and towers. At Saint-Georges the antenna was measured at 59.2 m, and its position computed to a hundredth of an arc second: the coordinates available until then, rounded to the second, left an uncertainty of about twenty metres in plan.
2023–2024: ten locations seen from antenna height
From October 2023 to April 2024, TDF entrusted us with ten locations in Cayenne (Mont Lucas, Palika), Rémire-Montjoly, Parc Lindor and along the RN2. The principle stays the same: the drone climbs to each antenna height under study and photographs the horizon. At Mont Lucas, in October 2023, two heights were covered, 18 and 35 m; at Parc Lindor, in December, 33 and 35 m, with eight views oriented every 45°, a vertical view and two stitched half-panoramas, from 0 to 180° and from 180 to 360°, for each height.
On the RN2 site, in March 2024, the first candidate location was photographed at five heights, from 48 to 60 m, with oblique photos for the landscape integration of the future tower. In April, two locations at Palika and one in Rémire-Montjoly completed the series. On the island of Cayenne, every flight requires a notification to the prefecture and, inside the airport control zone, air-traffic control approval.
2025: a complete site for its 3D model
In May 2025, in Sinnamary, the water-tower site was captured in one day, with a TDF agent on site, for the contractor in charge of computing its digital twin: photogrammetric orbits around the structure, four 25-photo panoramas above and below the top, indoor and outdoor 360° tours. The 3D model was then produced successfully from our dataset, which the contractor described as “very well structured”.
2026: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, delivered the next day
In March 2026, TDF wanted 360° shots of a site in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, with a fixed appointment on site so that its team could combine trips. The mission was carried out on 17 March, at the agreed time, and the deliverable went out the next day.
