Specifying 3D Accuracy When Using a SLAM Scanner

Posted on June 26, 2019 by lidar
image of PX-80 Specifying 3D Accuracy
Specifying 3D Accuracy

Monday’s post, which caused an encouraging jump in traffic, came in part from the preparations that are underway for a webinar on specifying 3D accuracy for laser scanners. This educational webinar, co-sponsored by the USIBD and Paracosm will discuss the need to update surveying standards from 2D to 3D, provide an overview of the USIBD Level of Accuracy (LOA) specification and explain how these two topics can be applied to the use of Paracosm’s PX-80 handheld, SLAM-based laser scanner.

To learn more, you are invited to attend the webinar entitled, “Examining Accuracy in Building Documentation: USIBD’s Level of Accuracy Specification and SLAM-Based Scanning” on July 10, 2019 from 2 to 3 PM EDT. To register click here.

Continue reading →

Posted in BIM, Business Development, Education, Geomatics, Hardware, Indoor Mapping, Laser Scanning, Lidar, point clouds, Quality, Sensors, SLAM, Standards, Surveying, Surveying Engineering | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

TRB AFB80 Summer Meeting is Just One Month Away

Posted on June 25, 2019 by lidar

TRB AFB80 is the standing committee focused on Geospatial Data Acquisition Technologies in Design and Construction relating to highway transportation. We will be meeting in Daytona, FL July 21 – 24, 2019 at the Daytona Hotel.

Images for TRB AFB80 Summer Meeting is July 21-24

TRB AFB80 Summer Meeting is July 21-24

The Transportation Research Board AFB80 Summer meeting will include technical presentations as well as a number of networking events. Topics and demonstrations include: Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), Mobile/Aerial/Stationary LiDAR, 2022 Datums, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Connected Autonomous Vehicles, Engineering Automation, Subsurface Utility Engineering, project case studies, and vendor and state DOT updates.

As I have noted in previous years, this meeting is a unique opportunity to meet with the key decision makers regarding geomatics and geospatial data acquisition at the state DOTs.

Support for younger geospatial professionals attending this meeting is being strongly urged by the Committee. They are the future of this group and as we all know the number of surveyors retiring is exceeding the rate at which young people are entering the profession.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, AI, airborne LiDAR, Autonomous vehicles, Business Development, Conferences, Construction, driverless vehicles, geodetic, Geomatics, GIS, GNSS, Government, GPS, Ground penetrating radar, Infrastructure, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, Mobile LiDAR, Photogrammetry, point clouds, remote sensing, Research, satellites, Sensors, Software, Standards, Structure from motion, Surveying, Surveying Engineering, topography, UAS, UAVs, Visualization | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Surveying Control – Its Misuse and Effects on Accuracy

Posted on June 24, 2019 by lidar
image of surveyors The Importance of Survey Control
The Importance of Survey Control

One of the most important concepts in surveying is the principle that surveying control should be significantly more accurate than the actual survey. Some say it should be twice as accurate, some say an order of magnitude. In many cases this principle is being violated with the use of 3D laser scanners where the desired relative positional accuracy is effectively the same as the control survey, essentially an eighth to a quarter of an inch, or a few millimeters.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, airborne LiDAR, Geomatics, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, Metrology, Mobile LiDAR, Standards, Surveying, Surveying Engineering, The Industry, UAS, UAVs | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Waymo CTO is Working on The Difficult Edge Cases

Posted on June 23, 2019 by lidar

photo of car Waymo CTO Working on Difficult Edge Cases

Waymo CTO Working on Difficult Edge Cases

Dmitri Dolgov, Waymo CTO is fighting the elements in his bid to bring autonomous cars to the world. The chief technology officer of Waymo, the Alphabet-owned firm born out of Google’s semi-secret X development lab, is at a point where his vehicles can handle day-to-day operations. But before the firm can think about taking the human out of the driver’s seat, they need to weed out as many edge cases as possible.

“Phoenix gets these crazy dust storms every once in a while, and different sensors, cameras, lidars, radars, can sense the environment in those conditions differently,” Dolgov tells Inverse about the testing of its public taxi service in Arizona.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, AI, artifical perception, artificial intelligence, Autonomous vehicles, computer vision, driverless vehicles, intelligent cities, Lidar, Research, Sensors, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Comparison of Structure From Motion with UAV Lidar

Posted on June 21, 2019 by lidar

point cloud image for Comparison of Structure from Motion with UAV Lidar

Comparison of Structure from Motion with UAV Lidar

In this paper a side-by-side comparison of structure from motion photogrammetry is performed with lidar using the same UAV platform. Thanks to Bill Gutelius at Qntfi for the lead.

The capabilities and utility of UAV LiDAR and surface from motion photogrammetry have been of wide discussion in the remote sensing community and assumptions made, often speculative, about the potential strengths and limitations of these systems.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, Agriculture, airborne LiDAR, Data, Environmental, Lidar, Mapping, Photogrammetry, point clouds, remote sensing, Research, Sensors, Structure from motion, UAS, UAVs | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Cleaning of 3D Laser Scans with Machine Learning

Posted on June 20, 2019 by lidar

point cloud image Cleaning of 3D Laser Scans Using Machine Learning

Cleaning of 3D Laser Scans Using Machine Learning

In this article, we introduce a semi-automated cleaning of 3D laser scans approach that incrementally trains a random forest (RF) classifier on an initial keep/discard point labeling generated by the user when cleaning the first scan(s). The classifier is then used to predict the labeling of the next scan in the sequence.

Terrestrial laser scanning campaigns provide an important means to document the 3D structure of historical sites. Unfortunately, the process of converting the 3D point clouds acquired by the laser scanner into a coherent and accurate 3D model has many stages and is not generally automated. In particular, the initial cleaning stage of the pipeline—in which undesired scene points are deleted—remains largely manual and is usually labour intensive.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, AI, artificial intelligence, Cloud, computer vision, cultural heritage, Data, Historic Preservation, Laser Scanning, Lidar, machine learning, point clouds, Research, Software | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Cruise is Sharing Data Visualization Platform

Posted on June 19, 2019 by lidar

images of Cruise Provides Data Visualization Platform

Cruise Provides Data Visualization Platform

Autonomous vehicle start-up Cruise is sharing a software platform with roboticists that was initially created to give its own engineers a better understanding of the petabytes of data generated every month from its fleet of autonomous vehicles.

From an article in Tech Crunch by Kirsten Korosec.

The platform is a data visualization tool called Webviz, a web-based application aimed at anyone working in robotics, a field that includes autonomous vehicles. Researchers, students and engineers can now access the tool and get visual insight into their data by dragging their robotics data into an ROS bag file.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, AI, artifical perception, artificial intelligence, Autonomous vehicles, Business Development, computer vision, Consumer, Data, driverless vehicles, Laser Scanning, Lidar, machine learning, Research, Robots, Sensors, Software, Visualization | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Second Annual World Safety Summit – Time to Register

Posted on June 18, 2019 by lidar
image of vehicle Second Annual World Safety Summit October 2, 2019
Second Annual World Safety Summit October 2, 2019

Velodyne Lidar is hosting the second annual World Safety Summit on Autonomous Technology at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA, October 2, 2019. The event is free, but we encourage you to RSVP by clicking here.

In the spirit of collaboration, the event brings together business, government, public safety, and community leaders to share a broad range of perspectives and creative solutions to address safety issues and public concern regarding autonomous vehicles (AV).

Continue reading →

Posted in AI, artifical perception, artificial intelligence, Autonomous vehicles, Business Development, Conferences, Consumer, driverless vehicles, Government, Laser Scanning, Lidar, point clouds, Research, Sensors, Software, The Industry | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sense Photonics Mounts Flash Lidar on Curved Surface

Posted on June 17, 2019 by lidar
Image of Vehicle with Sense Photonics Emerges with Flexible Flash Lidar
Sense Photonics Emerges with Flexible Flash Lidar

The latest stealth autonomous vehicle start-up to come out of hiding is Sense Photonics offering “flexible” flash lidar. The main advantages that this provides is the ability to locate the sensor on a curved surface and the ability to achieve a much wider field of view.

From an article in Tech Crunch by Devin Coldewey

Lidar is a critical part of many autonomous cars and robotic systems, but the technology is also evolving quickly. A new company called Sense Photonics just emerged from stealth mode today with a $26M A round, touting a whole new approach that allows for an ultra-wide field of view and (literally) flexible installation.

Still in prototype phase but clearly enough to attract eight figures of investment, Sense Photonics’ lidar doesn’t look dramatically different from others at first, but the changes are both under the hood and, in a way, on both sides of it.

Early popular lidar systems like those from Velodyne use a spinning module that emit and detect infrared laser pulses, finding the range of the surroundings by measuring the light’s time of flight. Subsequent ones have replaced the spinning unit with something less mechanical, like a DLP-type mirror or even metamaterials-based beam steering.

Continue reading →

Posted in AI, artifical perception, artificial intelligence, Autonomous vehicles, Business Development, computer vision, Consumer, driverless vehicles, Lidar, Research, Sensors, solid state lidar | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

European Union Drone Regulations Published

Posted on June 16, 2019 by lidar

The new European Union drone regulations will enter into force in 20 days, but included in the regs is the fact that they do not go into effect for one year. A little confusing, but I guess the intent is to give advance notice.

logo for European Union Drone Regulations

European Union Drone Regulations

On 11 June 2019, the new European Union’s regulation on drones was published. It consists 2 documents:

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/945
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/947

These 2 documents are now available in 23 languages.

Continue reading →

Posted in Admin, airborne LiDAR, Business Development, BVLOS, Government, Orgs, Standards, UAS, UAVs | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment