Helical flight paths are used in situations where the resolution is decimeter or between map scales of 1:500 and 1:5,000, and also in tomographic surveys. This characteristic is used in surveys of small areas, where high resolution and/or tomography are mandatory.

Furthermore, tomographic processing allows the horizontal section of the surveyed volume, obtaining information from both the surface of the land and its subsurface. Developments are underway on detecting anthills beneath the industrial forest, on volumetric measurement of tubers such as carrots and potatoes, and on surveying buried objects.

Tomographic processing provides a vertical resolution of 60 cm in the P band, 20 cm in the L band and 6 cm in the C band. Thus, a three-dimensional volume is obtained with voxels measuring 20 cm (E) x 20 cm (N) x 60 cm (V) in the P band, 6 cm (E) x 6 cm (N) x 20 cm (V) in the L band and 2 cm (E) x 2 cm (N) x 6 cm (V) in the C band, where (E) indicates the east direction, (N) north and (V) vertical.

If high resolution and tomography are not required, linear flight path surveying can be used, providing products between the scales of 1:5,000 and 1:50,000.