A Map-First Geospatial Platform for Drone, Seedcane and Field Operations

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Quick Snapshot

Technostacks delivered geospatial software development for Sense SaaS, a multi-tenant platform where every farm, field, block, and site is a real object on a map, and every product works against those objects. On that core sits a services marketplace for ordering drone flights and lab analysis, a seedcane register for certifying sugarcane planting material, grower info packs for yield estimates, and an offline field app for GPS capture and sampling. It replaced phone bookings, WhatsApp threads, and paper forms with one system of record. A Kafka event backbone processes imagery and notifications in the background, and a database-driven configuration layer lets the client add providers and rules without a software release.

Brief

Agricultural operations data lived in files and on paper that nobody could query. Providers took orders by phone and delivered results as files the customer often couldn’t open. Seed cane certification and volume commitments ran on paper and email, growers received estimates as static documents, and field teams recorded boundaries by hand, each workflow with its own tools and no shared view of the land it was about.

Technostacks built Sense SaaS as one geospatial platform: a Vue 3 web app, an installable offline field app, a Django REST API, PostgreSQL/PostGIS with GeoServer for maps, and a Kafka pipeline for background processing. Drone imagery, lab orders, inspections, estimates, and field samples now attach to the same mapped assets and surface in the same dashboards.

Challenges

Every Workflow Was a Separate Island

Service orders, inspections, estimates, and field samples lived in different tools, with no shared record of the field they described.

Critical Data Locked in Files

Drone rasters, lab orders, and inspection sheets could be stored but not queried, compared, or mapped.

Paper-Based Industry Workflows

Seed cane moves through several stages, each needing sign-off and an audit trail that paper and email could not provide.

Field Teams Work Without Signal

Boundary capture and sampling happen on farms with poor connectivity, so a web-only tool fails where the data is collected.

Every Partner Works Differently

Service packages and business rules differ per partner, so hard-coding them would mean a release for every change.

Large Files Blocked Users

Gigabyte survey rasters would stall the interface if processed while the user waits.

Solution We Provide

Technostacks built Sense SaaS as a map-first platform where every product attaches to the same mapped assets instead of building its own data model.

Map-First Asset Core

Farms, fields, and sites are drawn on an OpenLayers map, stored in PostGIS and served through GeoServer, nested into hierarchies that every module attaches to.

Services Marketplace and Ordering

Providers publish packages such as drone flights and lab analysis with their own order forms. Customers order against mapped assets, and providers move orders through a lifecycle with both sides notified.

Drone Data Pipeline

Uploaded imagery is virus-scanned, then Kafka runs parallel jobs to extract location, build previews, and convert rasters for streaming results appear as map layers over the customer’s fields.

Seedcane Register

Tracks planting material through fallow, planting, and ratoon stages on certified streams, with every inspection and change written to an audit log.

Grower Info Packs

Secure mobile packs give growers yield estimates and ripener orders over satellite layers, while managers review activity across the grower base.

Offline Field App

An installable app lets field teams capture boundaries by GPS and log samples offline, work syncs once the device reconnects.

Shared Configuration Engine

A rules engine, form builder, and dashboards are shared by every product, so most changes ship as configuration, not code.

How It Works

Three flows run on the same core, each ending with data landing on the map:

Technologies Used

Frontend: Vue 3, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Kendo UI for Vue, offline PWA

Mapping & Geospatial: OpenLayers, GeoServer, PostGIS, GDAL, Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF, Sentinel Hub

Backend: Python 3.12, Django 5, Django REST Framework, Celery, Redis

Event Pipeline: Apache Kafka

Imagery & Files: Pillow, OpenCV, ClamAV virus scanning

Database: PostgreSQL 16, PostGIS 3

Integrations: SendGrid, Twilio, Zoho Subscriptions, Paystack, SAML SSO

Security & DevOps: JWT, TOTP MFA, FIDO2/WebAuthn, Docker, GitLab CI/CD, Sentry

Export Formats: CSV, Excel, PDF, GeoJSON, Shapefile, GeoTIFF

Impact

Sense SaaS replaced phone bookings, emailed files and paper forms with one geospatial platform where every piece of operational data belongs to a place on the map:

Conclusion

Technostacks turned agricultural operations that lived in files, phone calls, and paper forms into one geospatial platform where every workflow attaches to a place on the map. Landowners order drone and lab services in one flow, growers manage certification with a full audit trail, and field teams capture data offline that lands on the web platform; all sharing one core instead of running as separate tools.

The client is now equipped to launch new products on the same foundation: new providers, packages, partner brands, and rules are configuration, not code. The same core of assets, orders, background processing, and offline capture fits any business that manages work and data against land, from other crops to new regions.

Building a Platform on Maps, Not Files?

Whether it’s service ordering, field data capture, or multi-product operations tied to physical locations, Technostacks can build a geospatial platform that keeps every workflow attached to the place it happens.

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