3top Map
3top Map turns a consumer DJI drone into an aerial mapping rig. The Android app pushes an optimised flight plan to the controller, and 3top returns 2D maps, 3D models and terrain measurements in under an hour, without LiDAR.
What is 3top Map?
3top Map is the Android application sitting at the front of 3top's aerial mapping service, and its job is deliberately narrow: it generates a pre-designed flight plan and copies the waypoint files to a DJI RC2 remote controller over a USB cable. Everything that makes the resulting imagery usable for photogrammetry is already baked into that plan, so the operator is never asked to configure overlap, altitude or camera settings.
The wider proposition sits behind it. 3top combines proprietary artificial intelligence, photogrammetry and digital elevation models to pull structural information about terrain and crops out of pictures taken by ordinary consumer drones. The company positions this explicitly against LiDAR, which it describes as limited by cost and complexity. The claimed throughput is roughly ten hectares — about fourteen football pitches — from ten minutes of flight on a single battery, with automated processing returning results in under an hour.
Hardware compatibility is a short list rather than an open promise. The site names the DJI Mini 4 Pro, Mini 5 Pro, Air 3S and Mavic 4 Pro; the Google Play listing adds the Air 2 S and Air 2, all tested on the DJI RC2 controller. An Android phone and a USB cable complete the kit, and there is no iOS build.
Outputs are not locked away. Finished maps are served from 3top's own online map server, which feeds GIS software such as QGIS as well as agricultural and urban platforms. The public portfolio is unusually candid for a company this young: around twenty real jobs across Spain, Brazil and the United States, filterable by drone, country, area and sector, covering vineyards, olive and orange groves, eucalyptus plantations, reforestation, sand mining, power stations and transmission lines, municipal embankment and sanitation surveys, and construction sites. Several show the analytical layer rather than just the picture — trees felled by a windstorm detected and counted, hail damage outlined on olive groves, maize losses attributed to wildlife — with surface and terrain models supporting tree and building heights.
The publisher, 3top Airtech, is Spanish and very small: the public site runs to two pages, and the app reports 50+ installations.
What it does
- Map large areas with an ordinary consumer DJI drone instead of professional survey equipment
- Produce 2D aerial maps and 3D models without resorting to LiDAR
- Generate digital surface and terrain elevation models of the flown area
- Measure tree height, trunk diameter, building height and surface areas from the model
- Detect and count features automatically, such as trees brought down by a storm
- Assess crop damage from hail, wind or wildlife to support an insurance claim
- Feed finished maps into QGIS or an agricultural or urban platform
When to use 3top Map / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if 3top Map is the right fit.
When to use 3top Map
- Agronomists, agricultural technicians and farm managers tracking vineyards, olive groves, orchards or row crops plot by plot
- Forestry managers and arborists needing tree counts, canopy heights and terrain models across plantations and reforestation sites
- Agricultural insurance loss adjusters assessing hail, windstorm or wildlife damage on a claim
- Surveyors, GIS technicians and remote sensing analysts wanting a faster, higher-resolution alternative to satellite imagery
- Municipal and civil engineering teams surveying embankments, urbanisation, sanitation networks or construction sites
When not to use 3top Map
- Operators without one of the handful of supported DJI drones, as the compatibility list is short and closed
- iPhone and iPad users, since the app is published for Android only with no Apple release
- Buyers who need a published rate card before opening a conversation, because no price is disclosed anywhere
- Organisations requiring written data commitments, as no DPA, GDPR statement, hosting location or retention period is published
- Development teams expecting a documented API to retrieve maps programmatically
How to use 3top Map
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Install 3top Map free of charge from Google Play onto an Android phone
- Connect the phone to a DJI RC2 remote controller with a USB cable
- Select the mission file covering the area you intend to survey
- Let the app copy the waypoint files across to the controller
- Fly the automated mission with a compatible DJI drone, around ten hectares in ten minutes on one battery
- Land and recover the imagery; the app alters nothing on the drone's firmware or storage
- Let 3top process the images automatically, with results available in under an hour
- Open the finished map in 3top's online map viewer
- Switch on the surface and terrain layers and use the measuring and drawing tools
- Pull the layers into QGIS or an agricultural or urban platform if you work elsewhere
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Runs on consumer DJI hardware rather than a professional survey rig
- Results are returned in under an hour after the flight
- Around ten hectares covered in roughly ten minutes on a single battery
- No photogrammetry expertise required, as the flight plan is pre-configured
- Outputs stay portable: QGIS and other platforms consume them from the map server
- A public, browsable portfolio of real jobs lets you judge output quality before committing
- The app is free, collects no personal data and never touches the drone's firmware
Cons
- No price is published anywhere, and the only route to one is a contact form or an email
- The public site is down to two pages: no about, no terms of service, no FAQ, no product page
- The GDPR is never mentioned, and no data processing agreement is published or offered
- Nothing is stated about where customer data is hosted or how long it is kept
- The privacy policy covers only the Android app, not the cloud processing that does the real work
- Android only, and only with a short, closed list of DJI drones
- Very small footprint: 50+ installations on Google Play, no ratings, and a footer still reading 2035
Pricing & Plans
The 3top Map application is free to download from Google Play, and the homepage invites visitors to obtain it at no cost. Beyond that, no pricing is published: 3top discloses no rate card, no plan and no billing unit for the mapping and processing service itself, and no amount or currency can therefore be quoted. Prospective users must contact the publisher through the homepage form, by email or by WhatsApp to obtain commercial terms. No time-limited free trial of the paid service is announced.
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how 3top Map handles your data.
GDPR overview
There is no GDPR implementation to report. Neither the homepage, nor the privacy policy, nor the Google Play listing mentions the GDPR, a legal basis for processing, data subject rights of access, rectification or erasure, or any response deadline. No data protection officer is named and no Article 27 representative is designated, the latter being consistent with the publisher being established in Spain and therefore inside the European Union. The privacy policy, dated 10 February 2026, is a short document about the Android application rather than a compliance statement, and it offers a single point of contact for questions about the policy. Readers should treat the absence of any GDPR wording as exactly that: an absence, neither a claim of compliance nor a denial of it.
Who owns the data?
The published documentation says very little about ownership. 3top's privacy policy covers only the 3top Map Android application, which states that it collects and stores no sensitive personal data, does not read GPS location, name or email address, and does not access photos, videos or personal files, including anything held on the drone or the controller. Its function is limited to reading the mission files the user selects and copying them to the controller. Crucially, no published document addresses who owns the imagery captured during a flight or the maps and elevation models produced from it. On that question the site is silent, and prospective customers should settle it in writing.
Reuse rights
Reuse rights are not stated anywhere. The only declared use of data is Firebase and Firebase Analytics, applied solely to anonymous usage statistics, error detection and performance improvement; the policy adds that beyond Firebase Analytics no third-party service is involved, with no trackers, no ad networks and no external storage, while Google Play's data safety section reports no data collected and none shared with third parties. What the documents never establish is whether a customer may freely reuse, redistribute or commercially exploit the maps and models 3top returns. Nothing grants that right and nothing withholds it, so it has to be agreed directly with the publisher before the results are relied upon.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
No hosting jurisdiction is disclosed for customer data. The site names no country, no region and no cloud provider for the imagery uploaded after a flight or for the maps served afterwards. The only third party identified anywhere is Firebase and Firebase Analytics, used by the Android application for anonymous usage statistics; the policy states that no other third-party service, tracker, ad network or external storage is involved. The marketing site itself runs on Wix, and the IP address it resolves to is an anycast content delivery node: it indicates where a visitor is served the web page, not where any customer data is processed or stored, and it should not be read as a hosting location. Finished maps are delivered from 3top's own map server on a dedicated subdomain, whose hosting is likewise undocumented. The publisher is established in Spain, which is the only jurisdictional anchor available, and that is a fact about the company rather than a statement about the infrastructure.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting 3top Map.
- The published privacy policy covers only the Android app; the cloud processing that handles your imagery is governed by no public document
- Ownership of captured images and finished maps is never addressed, so settle it in writing before uploading survey data
- Traction figures of more than 1,000 hectares, over 400 flights, 80 flight hours and 1,375 km are self-declared and unaudited
- Being supported by BFAero is an external backing, not a guarantee about the product, and Net2fly merely lent a drone for one portfolio flight
- Flying a drone remains subject to local aviation rules the site does not address, and the tool does not make a flight lawful
- The legal identity is inconsistent across sources: the site says 3top Airtech while Google Play shows a publisher named 3top AI and an individual as trader of record
- Automated measurements invite over-trust: a counted tree or an outlined damage area is a model output and still needs ground verification before it drives a claim or a contract
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Low on the software side, conditional on the hardware. Setup amounts to a free Google Play install with no account to create, after which the app copies the flight plan to the controller over USB. 3top states that no technical knowledge is required of the operator, and the photogrammetry parameters are pre-set rather than configured. The real barrier is equipment: an Android phone, a USB cable, a DJI RC2 controller and one of a short list of compatible DJI drones. Anyone already owning that kit can be flying quickly.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind 3top Map
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
What does the 3top Map app actually do?
Which drones are supported?
Is there an iPhone version?
How long does it take to get a result?
How much ground does a single flight cover?
What does it cost?
Can I use the maps in my own GIS?
Does the app read my photos or my location?
Is there an API?
Should you pick 3top Map?
3top Map is a narrow tool attached to a broad ambition. The application itself does one thing, pushing an optimised waypoint plan onto a DJI RC2 controller, but it is the entry point to a service that turns a sub-kilogram consumer drone into a source of survey-grade maps, elevation models and measurements. The engineering claim is unusually well evidenced: rather than a gallery of stock imagery, 3top publishes a browsable portfolio of real jobs across Spain, Brazil and the United States, complete with analytical outputs such as counted windfall trees, hail damage outlined on olive groves and maize losses attributed to wildlife.
What surrounds that engineering is thin. There is no price, no terms of service, no about page and no FAQ; the entire public site is two pages. More seriously for a professional buyer, the published privacy policy governs only the Android file transfer and says nothing about the cloud processing where the imagery actually goes. The GDPR is never mentioned, no data processing agreement is offered, and neither hosting location nor retention period is disclosed. The company is real and registered in Spain, but young and very small, and the footer still carries an uncorrected template year.
The honest reading is that the product looks further along than the company around it. For an agronomist, forester, loss adjuster or municipal surveyor who already owns a compatible DJI drone, the portfolio is worth an hour and the free app costs nothing to try. Anyone carrying procurement or data protection obligations should treat the missing paperwork as a live question, and get pricing, data ownership, hosting and retention answered in writing before uploading a survey.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.