Scan Station C10 - Leica's new all purpose scanner

Even in the middle of this historic recession manufacturers continue to improve their offers. You might think this is pointless in these hard times, like trying to sell sunscreen to Eskimos in winter, but then you could be wrong about that. When is the right time to announce a new product? When the product is ready to ship, or when the buyers decides it's time for a new product? Maybe a little bit of both. And who says the economy is all that bad anyways? Some surveying companies are making a killing on scanning work right now. Don't be surprised if most of the scanning capable survey companies are doing much better than those without. Enter the C10. Leica announced this week the arrival of their newest all purpose scanner, the Scan Station C10. (Not sure were the "C10" designation comes from but I'll let you know when I do) I have only briefly ready through the marketing literature but it appears to be a step up in features and ease of use and less so in performance. Your actual productivity will likely increase with the on-board modular battery and on-board storage and controls. I'm eager to get my hands on one and will post a much more comprehensive review when I do. Meanwhile, I have several nearly completed article to finish and post for you, and I'll be updating some of the earlier posts to bring that information current.

Cal Surveyor article and other updates

Thanks to everyone who has recently been encouraging me to keep posting to this blog. I didn't realize how many people were following my writings on laser scanning. One of the distractions which cause delays in the blog was an article I was writing for Cal Surveyor. Cal Surveyor is a quarterly magazine published by the California Land Surveyors Association. You can view the article on page 28 of the spring issue of Cal Surveyor. Other distractions include work on a research project for the National Science Foundation on scanning acted as and many other personal projects. Although I was listed as Co-Principal investigator on the NSF project my participation was more as a consultant than as an author. What do I have planned for this blog? Well, I'll be posting some unique scanning projects, some equipment and software reviews, and I hope to begin a summary of training opportunities. If you are a surveyor and you need to know what's happening in our industry I hope to make this the site that will keep you well informed. Stay tuned. Book mark my blog for all the latest details. Send me your comments, your ideas, and your insights. I gather much of my personal knowledge from industry events, manufacturer reps, my academic sources and from many many scanner users. I hope to hear more from you all.

Hertige scanning

Now here is an organization you should check out. Cyark is a non-profit organization devoted to promoting the virtual documentation of cultural and historical sites throughout the world. It’s charismatic leader is Ben Kacyra the founded of Cyra, the company that really put laser scanners in the hands of surveyors. He started it all. I’ve worked with Ben for a few years now on a couple of local conservation projects. He is truly a visionary and force to be reckoned with. He could probably use you help now too. Cyark has embarked on an ambitious campaign to scan and otherwise digitally document the 500 most endangered heritage sites in the world. Check it out. http://archive.cyark.org/

So what can I scan? Or, why even scan at all?

Like I said recently in my presentation at the CLSA conference, you should be scanning if your clients need it or request it, if it would be useful in your everyday surveying projects or if you simply want to jump in and be a pioneer. If your survey practice is a typical small operation with a few crews or less, scanning may only be useful if you are performing site topos and as-builts, interior and facility type settings. It is NOT a good tool for boundary. It is not a replacement for GPS (unless you are doing RTK topo surveys in open terrain) and it is not a replacement for skilled field surveyors. In future articles I’ll be answering some of the specific questions about scanning for your types of projects that some reader have sent in to me. In particular the most common types of surveys, your every day surveys. Ah, but is there really such a thing? Have you every truly experienced a completely routine day where nothing unique happened. Perhaps scanning can be more useful than you think. Send your questions and I’ll answer them as best I can.

The trouble with data

Laser Scanning for land surveying and civil engineering purposes is such a relatively new technology that most of us, whether earlier adopters or new surveyor on the scene, have had to resort to inventing helter-skelter fashion work flows, especially for the post processing of our scan data. One idea or step follows another until we are temporarily satisfied with the results. Several projects later, old procedures lead to better procedures, the cycle continues as we make more and different changes to our workflow. And so it goes. If you remember the early days of GPS surveying, processing scan data is much the same in that you are tweaking with the data and processing parameters to whittle away at those residuals and standard errors, all to make the final results unquestionably credible. The same is true in scan data processing and now, with scanning, it is much more difficult and complicated. More difficult in many ways. For starters, scanning technology is not based on a system developed by the government like GPS, rather scanning is a technology evolving from a multitude of origins. Each vendor is developing their own technology. They are using many different laser platforms, different data handling methods, different standards for processing and evaluating data, and of coarse, different methods of preparing deliverables. Finding qualified engineers and scientist, and useful training for scanning and the processing of scan data is also a mounting problem. Each vendor is essentially engaged in a free-for-all to develop the technology in what ever direction they feel is best. They are not constrained to predesigned parameters of a government system such as the case with GPS. They are using whatever technology they chose. Each manufactures scanning system is likely more different than they are for GPS receivers. I may get more direct exposure to multiple systems the near future. As a co-principal investigator for a laser scanning curriculum project at Evergreen Valley College funded by the National Science Foundation I will begin teaching a course in laser scanning next spring and the equipment may come from a source different than the equipment that I am familiar with using. I look forward to sharing with you my insights during this undertaking. I fear our industry will be slow to fill the demand for qualified scanning measurement experts. I hope I can be part of the solution to this problem. Let me know of you have ideas.

Here it comes-the demand for scanning

So many new things to tell you about. Laser scanning for the AEC industry has been lukewarm at best for quite some the time. All the hype from vendors has fueled lots of articles in the various industry magazines. Most of the actual use out side of petrol industry is limited to a few pioneers, big firm which have embraced scanning and a few assorted niche areas. But I feel the changes coming. I've been telling people that the big movement in demand for scanning will follow the use of 3D design and that our industry, AEC, is just now starting to consider the use of 3D or Virtual Design tools. I recently spoke at the annual conference for CLSA. I presented an "average surveyor's" perspective on the state of laser scanning technology and what every surveyor should know about scanning thus far. This level of presentation was exactly what everyone wanted. The feedback I got afterwards was very positive, that I had answered much of the curiosity that lingered in the minds of many surveyors who are getting mixed signals about whether this is a technology that they should be adopting now or waiting. At the conference I ran into Geoff Jacobs, Sr Vice Pres. Leica HDS (and frequent contributor to Professional Surveyor magazine. I see Geoff at many of the laser scanning industry events and occasionally I bump into him at the Leica HDS headquarters in San Ramon, Calif. when visiting there for user-group meeting or dealing with equipment issues (it is very convenient to live and work very near their offices since our firm uses Leica HDS scanners). Geoff was very keen to hear what surveyors have to say about scanning and how they are deploying scanning in their daily work and work flows (we used to call these procedures). I must say that Geoff and company put a whole lot of effort into figuring how best to bring value to the surveyor through the use of their products. Later at the same conference Geoff cornered me for an introduction to Marc Cheves, editor of American Surveyor magazine. several years ago when Marc first stated his magazine I offered to write a few columns for him. Well that never happened. I just never made time to do it and so it never got done. Every once in a while I would get an email from him asking if I had come up with anything to submit yet. Well now I have Geoff and Marc headed my way and I'm surrounded by slot machines and talkative surveyor so there's no getting out of this one. It turns out to be okay. I had never actually met Marc in person so I was actually pleased to have a moment to chat with him. Geoff introduced me as a Leica products user and I think Geoff was hoping that I would submit some draft material to the magazine for consideration not knowing that Marc and I had already discussed this possibility yet I had just not made it happen yet. Don't give up Marc. There may still be hope. There is a lot to write about scanning now and I feel an urge coming on. So all, stay tuned for many posts in the coming weeks.

Cyclone - a brief description

Cyclone is a full featured software suite by Leica with separate modules for controlling scanners (works with all Leica models), registration of multiple scans, modeling, and much more. All work done on the scan data is performed with the point data in Leica's proprietary file format for points known as an .imp file.

RealWorks Survey

RealWorks Survey office software is Trimble's software suite with separate modules for registration of multiple scans sets, modeling, and many more survey friendly functions. I must admit that I know very little about the actual performance of the various modules but I am told that it is more intuitive than some software suites but I haven't been able to verify this yet. I plan to thought. One thing that did catch my attention was a patented feature in the data collection software which makes it is possible to acquire a specified point density on all surfaces no matter whether the surface is near or far. When I get a chance to see this feature for myself, I'll let you know if it can account for the incline and tilt of surfaces in the field of view. There is also a free viewer for the Trimble point cloud.