Category Archives: Lidar/Imaging

HoloLens users are able to see both the real world around them and virtual-reality objects, such as design features that have not yet been built.

Blending Realities

A 3D design and visualization tool with phenomenal potential in the AEC world is coming from a collaboration between Microsoft and Trimble. Imagine designing an object, in 3D and color, using only gaze, gestures, and voice (GGV) commands. Imagine designing an entire building the same way—or modifying an existing one. Imagine moving in a physical...

Imetrum’s portable, long-range, camera-based monitoring system was used in the benchmarking trial.

Optical Monitoring

Above: Imetrum’s portable, long-range, camera-based monitoring system was used in the benchmarking trial. How reliable are optical monitoring techniques for civil engineering structures? Editor’s Note: Camera-based systems have long been used in industrial metrology for manufacturing, materials testing, and integrity monitoring. Now they’re finding utility in the “macro” realms of AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction). Many people in the...

This image, created with Woolpert’s online QC tool eQAS, illustrates the ability to review sign data from multiple perspectives and provides lidar and image data at the location of each sign.

Signs of Change

Above: This image, created with Woolpert’s online QC tool eQAS, illustrates the ability to review sign data from multiple perspectives and provides lidar and image data at the location of each sign.  One collect, multiple uses. A mobile mapping system (MMS) is a versatile tool capable of creating both GIS asset inventories and design-level mapping...

URC Ventures CEO David Boardman demonstrates a stockpile geometry capture. The ~3,000-cubic-yard pile was imaged in ~three minutes, using only his iPhone and two safety cones placed 25 feet apart to establish scale.

Stockpile Reports

How to do enterprise inventory management from image-based 3D reconstruction, in the cloud and in your pocket. “No one wakes up in the morning thinking that they need to buy a point cloud,” says URC Ventures CEO David Boardman. “Most people would be thinking that they need to solve some business problem.” What URC Ventures...

3D CAD model of casting with gating and filtering system

3D Printing Forrealz

Imagine purchasing a new washer and dryer. Inside is a little package with the usual owner’s manual and warranty information, but also … a little usb drive. Imagine receiving a similar usb drive when you purchase a new car. And another when you buy a piece of furniture. You file them away thinking they might...

A mosiac of panoramic images provides a complete, detailed view of a processing facility. A few minutes of imaging can replace hours of more conventional surveying. The precise locations of the photostations (shown as models of the imaging rover) are measured using GNSS or total stations.

Creating Energy From Images

Geospatial information has long played an essential role in the energy industry, but now a new technology is cutting costs while improving the flow of knowledge. Editor’s note: The energy sector, oil and gas in particular, has grown more rapidly in the past half dozen years than in the past half a century. New fields,...