I had the opportunity today to receive a briefing on Riegl’s impressive Automatic Registration 2.0 software capability. First of all the software now comes loaded on the VZ400i. By making use of the on board digital compass, IMU and GNSS the automatic registration software eliminates the need for targets, if network control is not required. Without targets scan to scan accuracies of 2 to 5 mm are being observed.
If network control is required the need for targets is greatly reduced. For a project of 50 to 100 scans as few as 6 targets would be needed, thereby greatly reducing the need for equipment and the time to set up and retrieve the targets.
For highway projects maximum productivity can be realized by mounting the scanner on a vehicle using something like Certainty 3D’s TopoLift. In this configuration scan times can be held to 3 to 5 minutes which includes the high density scans, images and GNSS position. Registration takes 30 to 40 seconds per position.
The combined hardware and software results in a highly productive system that requires very little training and support since the expertise is built in to the software running on the scanner.
If you are looking for productivity and ROI you need to take a look at the VZ400i with automatic registration.
No matter how awesome the technology, in the interest of full journalistic disclosure you should probably add disclaimers to your posts that – for this article here for example – would state that both RIEGL and Certainty3D are advertisers on this Web site.