from the picture above my 2d and 3d calculations of the area are the same, what did i do wrong?
i am an sub contactor who primary uses my drone for site photos but figured i would try and get a surface area on one site and see how i like the soft are and how it compares to the generals contract data
Hello and welcome to our Community! could you please add some screenshots of the measurements so that we can better understand the case. What measurements do you refer to exactly? Volumes, surfaces?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
here is a screen shot. my 2d and 3d surface areas are the same,
this is basically a large hole in the ground i know the cell size I’m just trying out the software to see if we can utilize it for our work
It seems that the area you drew (Surface 1) is pretty flat, this is why the 3D length and the 2D length and 3D and 2D areas are pretty much the same (similar Z values for your vertices)
I hope this helps 
the cell is 5 meters deep. it not flat. is there a different way to draw it to get the correct 3d area?
If it is deep, I believe you are interested in the Volume measurements:
in order to get the depth represented.
The Area measurement only takes into account the clicked verstices. If the vertices are all at the same level (Z), 3D and 2D areas will be pretty much the same.