Built by someone who ran the projects that needed this data.
Cardinal Reality Capture is a Florida company based in Santa Rosa Beach, flying aerial and terrestrial LiDAR, photogrammetry, thermal and digital twins for the people who have to make decisions about buildings and land.
The data usually shows up too late to be useful.
Most of the expensive problems in construction and restoration come from the same place. Somebody had to decide something about a physical condition nobody had actually measured. A quantity gets estimated from a walk. A scope gets written from a photograph. An owner approves an assessment based on a description.
Reality capture fixes that if it arrives early enough and in a format people can actually use. That second condition is where most vendors fall down. Data that lands in the wrong coordinate system, in a format nobody opens, three weeks after the decision got made, is not worth what it cost.
Cardinal is built around the opposite: agree the deliverable and the datum before mobilizing, collect every layer in one trip, and get it back inside a week in the format your software already reads.
Twenty five years of running the work that needed this data.
James O'Donoghue III has spent more than twenty five years in engineering, construction and operations leadership. Regional and executive operations roles in exterior restoration. Construction program leadership on complex occupied facilities, including a fully automated laboratory project. Automation and controls. Military engineering, where he served as an engineering instructor and project executive.
He founded Nautilus Civil Technologies, a drone and geospatial company serving architects, engineers, surveyors and construction clients on the Gulf Coast, and built its sUAS program, standard operating procedures and airspace coordination from the ground up.
That background is the reason the deliverables look the way they do. The person planning the flight has sat on the other side of the table, waiting on data that arrived late and in the wrong format, with a schedule already moving.
Where the experience comes from
- Exterior restoration
- Regional and executive operations leadership on occupied coastal restoration work. Concrete, waterproofing, facades, balconies and building envelope.
- Construction programs
- Project executive on large scale complex facilities, coordinating architects, engineers, contractors and international vendors.
- Geospatial
- Founder of a drone and geospatial firm serving AEC clients. LiDAR, photogrammetry, thermal, sUAS program design and airspace coordination.
- Military engineering
- Engineering instructor and project executive. High risk instruction, underwater construction, demolition operations and equipment accountability.
Four commitments that shape every job.
Agree the deliverable before mobilizing
Boundary, format, datum and tolerance settled on the scoping call. Most rework in this business traces back to skipping that conversation.
Collect every layer in one trip
Elevation, imagery and thermal on the same flight and the same control. A second mobilization to pick up something we could have collected the first time is our cost, not yours.
Deliver in your format
Whatever your team opens. Rebuilding a surface or reprojecting a cloud is work you should not have to do.
Say what the data will and will not support
Before you commit, not after you have built a decision on it. If a site will not hold the tolerance you need, we would rather tell you than deliver something that quietly does not.
Facts, not adjectives.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Legal name | Cardinal Reality Capture LLC |
| State of formation | Florida |
| Based | Santa Rosa Beach, Florida |
| Founder | James O'Donoghue III |
| Pilot certification | FAA Part 107 |
| Liability coverage | $1M or greater |
| Ownership | Service disabled veteran owned, self certifying |
| Typical delivery | Under 7 days |
We are self certifying as service disabled veteran owned and have not completed SBA VetCert. If a contract requires the formal certification, we will tell you before you spend time on it.
Common questions.
Are you a licensed surveying firm?
How long have you been doing this?
Who actually shows up on site?
What is your service area?
Are you insured?
Talk to the person who will fly it.
No account manager, no handoff. Call or send a boundary and you are talking to the founder.