Tag Archive for: LiDAR

Welcome to SCANable, The Ultimate Resource for 3D Laser Scanning and LiDAR

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SCANable is an organization committed to providing valuable information and resources related to the 3D Laser Scanning, LiDAR and Mobile Scanning industries in order to increase the awareness of the benefits and capabilities of these technologies. We strive to provide the necessary tools and support to further enhance the state of these industries including on-line laser scanner equipment rental through our Preferred Provider program (Leica, Z+F, FARO, Riegl, Trimble and Topcon).

We are working with our partners across the nation to provide price consolidation and standardization of laser scanning equipment rentals with a commitment to provide the highest quality products and absolute excellence in service. Our goal is to build lasting customer relationships and ultimately, to be the most valuable resource for the entire industry.

SCANable provides:

– The Latest News Related to 3D Laser Scanning, LiDAR and Mobile Scanning
– On-line Equipment Rental Reservations – Nationwide (Leica Geosystems, FARO, Z+F and more)
– Hardware and Software Reviews
– Classified Ads
– Industry Job Openings
– Upcoming Industry Events
– Service Provider Business Directory
– Zebra Imaging Hologram Processing

Our organization will prove to be a valuable resource. However, your input and contributions will help to further enhance the awareness of our industry. If you are interested in increasing the exposure of your company, please fill out the Business Directory form.

If you are interested in contributing articles relative to this site, please register for a free account here. Upon approval, you will have access to this site. If you don’t have time to commit to writing articles for this site, you can also send news tips or article ideas to info@scanable.org.

IBM Visualizes a “Smarter Planet” using 3D Laser Scanning Technology [LiDAR]

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HOUSTON, TX March 18, 2010 Coign Asset Metrics & Technologies (CoignAMT), at the direction of Zoo Film Productions of Hollywood, CA, has helped produce IBM’s first globally released television commercial created entirely from Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) 3D point cloud data.

CoignAMT used the HDS6100 phase-based laser scanner from Leica Geosystems to create scenes of cars on a freeway, patients in a hospital, electricity grids and much more. The 30-second LiDAR-based commercial is a key part of IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative to portray that data is all around; and that by changing the way the world thinks, companies can maximize the use of data to lower their costs and reduce environmental impact.

Travis Reinke, business sector manager for CoignAMT, says, “Coincidentally, IBM’s perspective is a core part of CoignAMT’s business practice. We help our clients see the long-term value of the data they currently have by using the latest technology, such as 3D laser scanning, to quickly gather an immense amount of data to support their existing “intelligent” systems.”

The Zoo Film Productions crew spent a week in Houston, TX with CoignAMT personnel capturing laser scan data of transmission lines and over 16 blocks of downtown Houston streetscape and surounding buildings. CoignAMT then merged the point cloud data gathered in downtown with 6 square miles of low-altitude helicopter-based LiDAR provided by Aerotec LLC out of Birmingham, AL. Zoo Film Productions crews also created numerous scenes of hospital activities as well as automobiles with and without drivers that CoignAMT scanned individually for use in the commercial.

Reinke continues, “We were honored to be part of this innovative project given the direct correlation between the services CoignAMT provides and IBM’s Smarter Planet initiatives. Using the latest laser scanning technology to visually portray the importance of the data surrounding us was an unforeseen irony. I would never have imagined that we would be using this technology to scan people and cars, objects that are often considered ‘noise’ on a typical inventory project.”

View IBM “Data Anthem” at 848×480: http://www.glossyinc.com/zoo/ibmdataanthem.html
Full credits and a selection of stills: http://www.glossyinc.com/ibmdacred.html
Follow CoignAMT on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/CoignAMT
Follow Travis Reinke on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/HDLS

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cj6VtYpBI4

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About Coign Asset Metrics & Technologies LLC:
Coign Asset Metrics & Technologies, LLC (CoignAMT) is a HUBZone qualified, SBA certified, small business that provides a full range of asset management life cycle services and specialized technologies, including high definition laser scanning (HDLS). Its mission is to strengthen public and private sector organizations by aligning their assets and operational practices with their strategic initiatives. CoignAMT is headquartered in the Pittsburgh, PA area, with regional offices located in Colorado Springs, CO, and Houston, TX. Clients include federal, state, and local governments, as well as private sector customers in the construction, energy, transportation, manufacturing, and security industries.

3D mapping drone fires lasers from a mile away (video)

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by Vladislav Savov @ Engadget posted Nov 18th 2009 at 6:40AM

The MIT Technology Review has unearthed a new laser-based 3D mapping robot that can produce results similar to those obtained from $100,000 systems at about a fifth of the cost. Funded by the US Army, researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology have now demonstrated the Remotely Operated and Autonomous Mapping System (ROAMS, for short), which employs a mirror-based LIDAR system that bounces a laser off a rapidly rotating mirror and gleans environmental information from how long it takes for each pulse to bounce back. An array of video cameras and IR proximity sensors add to this recon bot‘s sentience, though you’ll still need to be within a mile’s range to operate it. So not quite yet ready for solo missions to Mars, but plenty useful for gathering data on our own planet. You’ll find video and imagery of the results this machine kicks out after the break.

Autodesk Releases Subscription Advantage Packs with Ambercore Point Cloud Technology

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Ottawa, Canada, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 – Ambercore is pleased to announce its point cloud technology has been incorporated into the release of AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2010 and AutoCAD® Map 3D 2010, part of Autodesk’s Subscription Advantage Packs. These releases are the first products from Autodesk that incorporate Ambercore’s technology which provides valuable new functionality for importing and visualizing large point cloud data sets.

Point clouds are extremely large data sets with millions of points, and are typically created through the use of laser scanning, high-definition surveying, or LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). They provide accurate representations of existing conditions of terrain surfaces, roadways, bridges, and the interior or exterior of features of buildings.

Some common uses of LiDAR data in AutoCAD® Civil 3D® and AutoCAD® Map 3D include using the point cloud data to create DEMs and contour data, digitizing as-built features for design projects, visualizing power lines and surrounding vegetation for right-of-way management, and developing an understanding of the site context in site surveys.

The Ambercore point cloud technology within the AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2010 and AutoCAD® Map 3D 2010 products enables customers to read, store, index, and quickly retrieve the extremely large point cloud data sets associated with laser scanning and LiDAR. As a result, customers are able to visualize and analyze data in 3D and better build high-precision 3D models.

“The point cloud technology from Ambercore allows Autodesk AEC customers to easily incorporate extremely large and highly accurate LiDAR data into their infrastructure design and management processes,” said Charlie Crocker, Infrastructure Product Line Manager, Autodesk AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) solutions. “The incorporation of this technology into AutoCAD Civil 3D and AutoCAD Map 3D software means that our customers will be able to better plan, design, and manage infrastructure projects.”

“We are very excited about the first release of our technology within Autodesk’s AutoCAD® Civil 3D® and Map 3D products,” said Ted Reeler, Director, Projects & Technology at Ambercore. “We are confident that this new functionality for point clouds will be a significant asset to their customers, and we look forward to our ongoing collaboration with Autodesk.”

About Ambercore
Ambercore is the 4D Company. We make innovative mobile LiDAR technology, we provide LiDAR data collection services, and integrate and extract knowledge from 4D data. Ambercore’s 4D-iQ provides enterprise-scale software and service solutions for Energy, Mining and natural resource sectors. With its powerful spatial modeling and simulation software, 4D-iQ helps clients make important business decisions by collecting, integrating and analyzing spatial information in 2D, 3D and in 4D (over time).

TITAN® is a revolutionary technology that produces high accuracy survey and mapping products for corridor and infrastructure projects across a number of vertical markets. Travelling at highway speeds – or on rail or vessel – the system uses state-of-the-art LiDAR, imaging and positioning technology to provide feature rich 3-dimensional data, from which intelligent information is extracted and delivered to clients. TITAN® has been deployed on projects throughout the world since 2003.

Ambercore’s Terrapoint Division has provided LiDAR and other digital mapping services for a diverse clientele in over forty countries for the past twenty years. Terrapoint’s primary focus is to find solutions that fit client needs, and to continue a reputation for meeting and exceeding client demands in the delivery of digital elevation and image data. Service and product offerings include complete airborne LiDAR, and digital imaging for engineering, survey and mapping applications. Terrapoint is considered a leader in aerial LiDAR services, and owns one of the largest fleets of sensors in the world. Best of breed solutions comprised of software, hardware and services have been deployed internationally with tier-one clients. Ambercore is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada with offices in Houston, Calgary, South Africa and Europe.

Baker Purchases Optech Lynx Mobile LiDAR Mapping Solution

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PITTSBURGH – August 12, 2009

Michael Baker Jr., Inc. (Baker), an engineering unit of Michael Baker Corporation (NYSE Amex: BKR), has announced that it has purchased the Optech Lynx Mobile LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system which expands Baker’s offerings of advanced geospatial technology solutions within its engineering business related to surveying and mapping services.

LiDAR is an optical technology that measures the properties of scattered light to determine range, elevations and other critical mapping data. The system will be used by Baker for engineering and asset management of bridges, transportation surfaces, levees and water control structures, buildings and other infrastructure. Baker’s purchase of the Optech system provides efficient and cost-effective delivery of surveying and mapping data in engineering quality detail. Additionally, Baker will collect survey-grade LiDAR and image data from a vehicle moving at highway speeds using the Optech solution.

Baker’s Bob Hanson, senior vice president, geospatial technologies, said, “This important purchase provides Baker with the most technologically advanced mapping and data collection system that creates value for our customers and helps to keep Baker at the forefront of technology in our core business lines.”

Michael Baker Corporation (http://www.mbakercorp.com) provides engineering and operations and maintenance services for its clients’ most complex challenges worldwide. The firm’s primary business areas are aviation, defense, environmental, facilities, geospatial, homeland security, municipal & civil, pipelines & utilities, transportation, water, and oil & gas. With more than 4,500 employees in over 50 offices across the United States and internationally, Baker is focused on creating value by delivering innovative and sustainable solutions for infrastructure and the environment.

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Contact:
David Higie

E-mail:
dhigie@mbakercorp.com

REVIEW:: ClearEdge3D EdgeWise™ – High Definition CAD Models Automatically From Point Clouds

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EdgeWiseCompany: ClearEdge3D
Software: EdgeWise™
Website: www.clearedge3d.com

Quick Pitch: Automatically extract vector planar surfaces from point cloud data.

Overview:
Having used just about every piece of software on the market related to processing and extracting vector information from point cloud data, I am always looking for the next best thing that will make my life and my team’s life easier. We have seen the hardware side of laser scanning come a long way in a very short period of time; however, the software side has not improved at the same blistering pace.

When the availability of ClearEdge3D’s EdgeWise™ software was announced here back in June and webinars were hosted to demonstrate the abilities of the software, I was anxious to get my hands on a copy of it to test it out for myself. While a little reluctant to offer demo licenses in the beginning, ClearEdge3D quickly began to realize that skeptics like myself were not willing to spend $5,000.00 on a piece of software that we have not had a chance to try out for ourselves, especially in this economy. They quickly began to recognize the needs of the market and responded accordingly by providing time-based pre-release beta trials to highly interested parties.

Installation:
The pre-release software I received (v. 1.0.2b) was easy to install, although there was an issue with the hardware lock driver on my Vista 64-bit laptop. This was quickly resolved by downloading the correct driver from the SafeNet website (Note: the updated drivers will be included on future distributions).

First Impression:
Right out of the box (figuratively speaking, as the software was downloaded from their website) I was very impressed with the overall look and feel of the software. ClearEdge3D was obviously interested in making their software easy to use and graphically pleasing-to-the-eye because they certainly did accomplish that. The UI is based on the latest Microsoft Office-type menu structure which made it very easy to jump right in.

EdgeWise-CaptureEase of Use:
ClearEdge3D insisted that I attend a 1-hour web-based training session and, while not necessarily needed due to the exceptional design and layout of the software itself, it did prove to be very beneficial and probably saved me the headache of learning by trial and error. With exception to a few terminology questions, I found the software’s left-to-right workflow very easy to use. Every step of the software’s conversion process was very well thought out and the routines made sense, technically speaking.

Technical Aspects:
While the software was primarily designed for the Architectural/BIM workflow, I have to admit that I was a little skeptical about the benefits of automatic conversion vs. the time needed to export the point cloud data to a format EdgeWise™ would accept (non-gridded PTX was the format of choice). Having been in the terrestrial laser scanning business over nine years, I know that point cloud data can be very cumbersome to deal with, especially when having to export to different formats. However, I was pleasantly surprised with EdgeWise’s ability to quickly import the various PTX files that I wanted to test.

NOTE: For those Cyclone users out there, EdgeWise™  is an automated “region grow patch, extend patch to all” batch routine. It really does a great job of quickly identifying planar surfaces and extending the edges to meet adjacent planes. The data import and processing time was a lot faster than I expected, but I did drastically reduce the number of points (to about 1 million).

Workflow:

  1. Export point cloud data (individual scans) to format accepted by EdgeWise™ (see FAQ on company’s website for more information on formats)
  2. Import individual scans into EdgeWise™
  3. Follow a few simple steps to identify the location of the scanner
  4. Extract ground surface (TIN)
  5. Let the software work its magic – it really is as simple as that!


Summary:
If you have a significant amount of basic models that need to be created from point cloud data, EdgeWise™ would likely be a good investment. Keep an eye on this product, because they are definitely on to something and, with a little direction from qualified users, they are on track to change our typical workflow.

Pointools Launches new Software: Pointools Edit

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Written by: Pointools

The challenges of managing and working with large point cloud datasets efficiently and maximising their value has been the primary concern of point cloud software specialists Pointools who have recently announced the availability of the eagerly-awaited flagship product Pointools Edit.

Key Features
Pointools Edit builds on the features of the successful Pointools View Pro, adding a new set of tools and enhancements in key areas without compromising performance. Like View Pro, Edit is also based on the Vortex point cloud engine designed to deliver productivity with huge datasets. Pointools say their focus with Edit has been to provide a post-registration toolkit that prepares point cloud data for production of deliverables reducing the overall project production time. Edit has been tested rigorously in production environments to ensure it delivers, even for most demanding projects.

Layers
Point layers are one of Edit’s most unique and powerful features. For example cleaning noise from an interior scan is made easier by moving the walls into another layer, allowing the user to focus on the interior. Once complete, the walls can be moved back to the original layer. Layers can also be locked effectively acting as a mask. Once a user grasps this methodology, editing that may have in the past taken many hours can now take minutes to complete with fewer commands needed.

Editing
In addition to the standard rectangle and polygon selection tools, Edit provides a 3d brush tool for easy selection of objects in complex environments. Selections are fast and utilise multiple CPU cores if available. When working with huge point datasets, density can be reduced for faster operation and on export the editing will automatically be reapplied to every point.

RGB Retouching
RGB values in point clouds can be re-touched using a colour matching and 3d brush with layers for masking and precise control. Photo editing filters such as brightness/contrast, hue/saturation can also be applied and the results saved to the point cloud file. Where the presentation of the point cloud data is important, this can fix mis-mapped obstructions or sky areas on scan data as well as scanner ‘circles’ not covered by photography.

For more information visit www.pointools.com

About Pointools
Pointools Ltd are a specialist software company producing a range of products for working with point cloud data. A UK company founded in 2003, Pointools products have thousands of users across the world. Pointools software accepts data from almost any laser scanner with many manufacturer’s native formats supported. Pointools Edit follows on from Pointools View Pro, Pointools Model for AutoCAD and Pointools4Rhino. Pointools products can be purchased from a network of resellers worldwide.

NIST’s LIDAR May Offer Peerless Precision in Remote Measurements

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Source: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/techbeat/tbx20090526_lidar.htm

By combining the best of two different distance measurement approaches with a super-accurate technology called an optical frequency comb, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built a laser ranging system that can pinpoint multiple objects with nanometer precision over distances up to 100 kilometers. The novel LIDAR (“light detection and ranging”) system could have applications from precision manufacturing lines on Earth to maintaining networks of satellites in perfect formation, creating a giant space-based platform to search for new planets.

LIDAR transmits light through the air and analyzes the weak reflected signal to measure the distance, or range, to the target. NIST’s new LIDAR, described in Nature Photonics,* has a unique combination of capabilities, including precision, rapid updates from multiple reference points at the same time, and minimal “measurement ambiguity.” The system can update measurements to multiple targets simultaneously every 200 microseconds. Measurement ambiguity in a LIDAR system is due to the fact that, if the target is at long range from the instrument, the system can’t distinguish between two different distances that are multiples of its “ambiguity range.” The new NIST LIDAR has a comfortably large ambiguity range of at least 1.5 meters—large enough to check the coarse distance with widely available technologies such as GPS.

No other ranging system offers this combination of features, according to the new paper. NIST’s LIDAR could enable multiple satellites to maintain tight spacing and pointing while flying in precision formations, acting as a single research instrument in space, the paper states. Formation flying has been proposed as a means to enhance searches for extraterrestrial planets, enable imaging of black holes with multiple X-ray telescopes on different satellites, and support tests of general relativity through measurements of satellite spacing in a gravitational field. The new LIDAR could enable continuous comparisons and feedback of distances to multiple reference points on multiple satellites. There also may be applications in automated manufacturing, where many parts need to fit together with tight tolerances, according to Nate Newbury, the principal investigator.

NIST’s LIDAR design derives its power from combining the best of two different approaches to absolute distance measurements: the time-of-flight method, which offers a large ambiguity range, and interferometry, which is ultraprecise. The LIDAR relies on a pair of optical frequency combs, tools for precisely measuring different colors (or frequencies) of light. The frequency combs used in the LIDAR are based on ultrafast-pulsed fiber lasers, which are potentially smaller and more portable than typical combs that generate laser light from crystals. The two combs operate at slightly different numbers of pulses per second. Pulses from one comb are reflected from a moving target and a stationary reference plane. The second comb serves as precise timer to measure the delay between the reflections returning from the target and from the reference plane. A computer calculates the distance between the target and the reference plane by multiplying the time delay by the speed of light.

* I. Coddington, W.C. Swann, L. Nenadovic and N.R. Newbury. Rapid, precise absolute distance measurements at long range. Nature Photonics. Published online May 24, 2009.

Media Contact: Laura Ost, laura.ost@nist.gov, (303) 497-4880

Tag Archive for: LiDAR