Category Archives: Construction/BIM
The (Android) Empire Strikes Back: Mainstreaming Augmented Reality, Part 2
Let’s pick up the AR thread again and look at what the Android platform has to offer in augmented reality (AR). It was just a matter of days after Apple rolled out its ARKit SDK (software development kit) when Google followed suit with its ARCore SDK. ARCore is built on Tango technology but expands the...
Sputnik and Infrastructure
Today is the 60th anniversary of an event that both enlightened, and, in some ways, frightened the world. But it greatly inspired the worlds of science, engineering, and education. And it also sparked, arguably more than any other single event, developments for the geospatial professions and industries. On October 4th, 1957, a tiny polished metal...
Topcon Positioning System’s Ray O’Connor on Infrastructure
Topcon Positioning System’s president and CEO, Ray O’Connor, speaks to xyHt about the U.S.’s infrastructure needs and how to meet them. Ray O’Connor, president and CEO of Topcon Positioning Systems, has many passions: producing advanced measurement and automation equipment and software, family, golf, and the subject of infrastructure—more specifically, the lack of long-term infrastructure planning. Putting...
Women in Surveying: An Accidental Surveyor Schools the Field
An unconventional geospatial technician oversees pre-construction and construction work for rehabbing a flood-control dam in VA. Pictured above: Evans inspects a recent concrete pour on the dam’s riser tower. “I’ve been on dozens of job sites and a lot of construction projects, and I have rarely worked with another female on site,” says Evans, a civil...
Controlling the Future with Training
To support user training, one company surpasses the usual by extending and supporting information, content, and new skills. Pictured above: Field training can sometimes be the most efficient way of capturing the attention of busy contractors. The surveying and construction industries are dynamic. The way people work today is clearly much different than 50 years ago,...
Night in the Afternoon: A US Solar Eclipse
What you need to know about the 2017 solar eclipse The upcoming solar eclipse will leave a 70-mile-wide trail of darkness across the United States on August 21, 2017 (see the map of the eclipse path on pages 44-45). This will be a once-in-a-lifetime event for many people. While another total solar eclipse will make...
