Reimagining Infrastructure with Advanced Mobile Mapping Solutions

Reimagining Infrastructure with Advanced Mobile Mapping Solutions

An interview with Katherine Hunt, CEO and Co-Founder of Teleqo Tech

January 2025

Can you please provide a brief overview of your professional background(s) and experience, particularly with 3D laser scanning/lidar technology, and/or a brief history of the growth of the company and its use of 3D technology? Please include an idea of the timelines.

Teleqo Tech, established in 2020, was founded with a mission to revolutionize and enhance efficiency in the mobile mapping industry. Specializing in end-to-end mobile mapping solutions, we handle data collection, processing, extraction, and visualization for diverse sectors, including telecommunications, transportation, utilities, and smart cities.

Since 2021, we have successfully collected over 50,000 miles of LiDAR and imagery data and extracted more than one million assets across the United States and Latin America. Our team is comprised of seasoned professionals with extensive backgrounds in mobile mapping, telecommunications, and the Department of Defense. Together, we bring over 50 years of combined expertise in mobile mapping technology.

Our experience spans a wide range of projects, from conducting telecommunications fiber-to-the-home surveys to managing comprehensive, statewide roadside asset inventory initiatives. Our commitment to 3D laser scanning and LiDAR technology has been integral to delivering precise, actionable data to our clients, driving innovation across industries.

What attracted you to the use of RIEGL hardware and software? Did you look at other products? Why did you choose RIEGL lidar sensors?

Teleqo began in 2020 with LiDAR as a mobile mapping solution and in 2021 recognized the need to expand their solutions. Along the way, we integrated various sensor types into our operations, further broadening our experience with diverse hardware systems and data outputs.

Through extensive extraction projects, we’ve worked with data from nearly every major mobile mapping vendor and found RIEGL sensors to be the gold standard for quality and accuracy. Their RiACQUIRE collection interface streamlines efficient data capture, while the RiProcess suite delivers unparalleled point cloud alignment. This precision minimizes noise and misalignments in the data, which can otherwise increase processing time and reduce efficiency during extraction.

While our proprietary New Compass Solutions software is designed to handle mapping-grade data from any sensor, the superior quality of RIEGL’s output significantly enhances the efficiency of the entire workflow. This allows us to collect and extract data more effectively, saving both time and resources. Our experience with diverse hardware has solidified RIEGL as our sensor of choice, ensuring we deliver unmatched accuracy and innovation in 3D surveying and mobile mapping solutions.

How do you integrate such a wide range of RIEGL products into your workflows? What were some of the challenges with that? What were some of the best practices and lessons learned?

Our New Compass Solutions extraction and visualization software was designed to be sensor-agnostic, enabling it to seamlessly ingest data from all major mobile mapping hardware vendors. This flexibility has allowed us to integrate the wide range of RIEGL mobile mapping systems into our workflow without issues.

RIEGL’s consistency in data quality and its standardized processing tools, such as RiACQUIRE and RiProcess, have further streamlined integration, ensuring smooth transitions between data collection, processing, and extraction. One challenge we initially encountered was ensuring our teams were fully trained to leverage the advanced features of RIEGL systems. To address this, we implemented a structured training program that allowed our teams to master the tools quickly.

Best practices we’ve developed include maintaining clear feedback loops between collection and extraction teams to optimize workflows and refining our internal processes to maximize the efficiency of RIEGL’s superior data outputs.

Can you provide a brief overview of two or three of the projects where you made use of RIEGL’s technology? Can you provide any thoughts on time savings vs. other methods? Any thoughts on return on investment?

We’ve leveraged RIEGL technology on several key projects. In Texas, we tackled a complex infrastructure project involving five levels of roadway across multiple 12-lane highways. This required over 50 passes of data collection, which RIEGL’s RiProcess aligned flawlessly, saving significant extraction time compared to other methods.

In Miami, FL, we completed a telecom project requiring the extraction of 22 asset types in a dense urban environment. The superior point cloud and imagery provided by RIEGL sensors dramatically reduced the time needed to extract small assets, such as valves, improving efficiency and accuracy.

Currently, we are gearing up for a sign inventory project for the City of Fremont, CA, utilizing the RIEGL VMY-2 with the Ladybug 6 camera system. The precise data these tools provide is expected to streamline the entire workflow, enhancing both time savings and return on investment across the project.

What do you see in the future for the use of 3D technology on your projects? Are you investigating other advanced technologies that will create new business opportunities?

The future of infrastructure lies in mobile mapping, offering unparalleled efficiency and precision for large-scale projects. By leveraging 3D data from LiDAR rather than relying solely on imagery, we unlock advanced capabilities like accurate change detection, precise measurements, and high data fidelity—key factors in modern infrastructure planning and management.

Our New Compass Solutions software is designed to handle these demands, providing scalable, sensor-agnostic tools for extracting and visualizing data from even the most complex mobile mapping projects. This platform is primed for large-scale applications, ensuring precision and efficiency while meeting the growing needs of smart cities, transportation networks, and utility management.

As 3D technology continues to evolve, we see mobile mapping as the cornerstone of future infrastructure development. By staying focused on LiDAR-driven 3D data analysis, we ensure our projects meet the highest standards of accuracy, enabling innovation and transformative solutions across industries.

Image 1: Pathfinder: Bringing Data to Life. This image depicts our Pathfinder web-based visualization of RIEGL VMY-2/Ladybug 6 data from Texas. Pathfinder displays LiDAR, imagery, and extracted assets. Users can take measurements in the point cloud, view the full attribute table, and bookmark and share favorite locations.

Image 2: Ranger: Precision Extraction at Scale. This image depicts our Ranger extraction platform with RIEGL data collected in Miami, FL. Ranger is a cloud-based extraction platform prioritizing data security and reliability. Ranger balances cutting-edge automation with human insight to optimize efficiency and precision.