I discussed the user of laser profiling in a post last week concerning trenchless sewer rehab. This article goes into a bit more detail on the technology. Turns out the laser profiling systems are not scanning. They simply project a ring of light that is then photographed with a CCD camera and analyzed to determine such factors as alignment, diameter, ovality and capacity.

The major application today for laser profiling is at the end of the construction process when the contractor needs to certify the completion of the work. Some state agencies, like Florida DOT have made laser profiling mandatory on their projects. Scanning is being considered for future improvements in the technology.

www.a-1pipecleaning.com/T.V.html

Although Autodesk recently announced Alias Sketch for AutoCAD I think it is fair to say that they have some catching up to do, even though the Alias sketching technology is some of the best on the market.

I tried searching on laser scanning, but it did not seem to work – now that is strange. I have tried it numerous times.

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LiDAR can be used to evaluate the degree of physical damage from a forest fire by evaluating the loss of canopy height and width. This can be inferred from the increase in ground points obtained in more heavily damaged areas. When combined with an assessment of the biological damage using digital aerial photography and the Normalized Differential Vegetation Index – NDVI, a standard remote sensing technique, the results can be superior to other evaluation techniques.

These are the results recently reported in a March 2010 PE & RS journal article entitled, Evaluation for Damaged Degree of Vegetation by Forest Fire using Lidar and a Digital Aerial Photograph, by Kwak, et al. Based on the the degree of damage, the appropriate methods can be used to restore the burned areas. In the more heavily damaged areas the remaining stems will have to be removed and new seedlings planted. In the lighter damaged areas natural restoration can be relied on.

This automated approach produced better results than previous studies.

Australian-based Maptek has announced the availability of a new long range scanner. The I-Site 8800 has a maximum range of 2,000 meters. Maptek has established itself as one of the premier scanning vendors serving the mining community – worldwide.

“The extra long range I-Site 8800 scanner has resulted from many years of research and development, building on our experience with manufacturing laser scanners suited to the demanding mining environment,’ said Maptek I-Site General Manager Peter Johnson.

He goes on, “Stockpile volumes, pit surveys and mapping can be completed faster than ever; even the largest open pits can be modeled in less than a day. The I-Site 8800 will outperform any other method for regular updates of production volumes and material reconciliation.”

The scanner comes complete with Maptek I-Site Studio software, the leading point cloud processing, modeling and analysis software. The latest version contains new features to make scanning projects more efficient.

Sanborn is a pioneer in the deployment of mobile mapping technology. As early as 2001, Sanborn was creating digital maps that captured visually and geospatially accurate roads, infrastructure, and other assets using the VISAT (Video Inertial Satellite) Video Capture and GPS/IMU technology. Today, Sanborn continues to push the leading edge of technology with the acquisition and deployment of the Optech Lynx V200 Mobile Mapping System. This advanced mobile mapping system combines LiDAR data with high resolution video collection to meet the accuracy required for today’s engineering grade applications and solutions.

The players are lining up in this space.

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Need to hear your feedback on this product before I say too much more, but I will say that Google is a scary force.

As some may know I am involved with the ASTM International – American Society of Testing Materials E57 committee on 3D Imaging Systems. For those of you who have not been involved with developing an industry standard, I can assure you this is really difficult work. Some might use other words or phrases to describe the process, but in any case I believe nearly everyone will agree that the laser scanning industry needs this kind of structure. I am convinced that this is holding back the industry.

Sometimes I wonder if the completely volunteer approach that E57 is operating under is going to get the job done. Some might argue that the lack of published standards is evidence that the process is not working, at least not at the pace that we need it to. For those of us in the forest, it can be difficult to see the trees.

In the end the real issue is time. In this economy I doubt that anyone can completely justify their involvement in this effort. If you work in a billable time shop, this is just not going to be something that can be justified at the end of the week, but if the standards are going to be developed then either firms have to make the commitment, or we are going to have to come up with a different approach.

The one that seems to me to be a possible alternative model is the OGC – Open Geospatial Consortium. The difference with this group is that the member firms pay to belong and in some cases dedicate employees to the development of the actual standards. Most of the key players are members and the results speak for themselves. There is also a full time staff actively supporting and guiding the development of the standards.

Progress is being made. The issue is the pace.