FAA National Drone Safety Awareness Week

Posted on October 21, 2019 by lidar
Logo for FAA National Drone Safety Week November 4 - 10, 2019

FAA National Drone Safety Week November 4 – 10, 2019

About Drone Safety Awareness Week – November 4 – 10, 2019

The FAA has developed what they are calling a Stakeholder Playbook 2019 to highlight FAA national drone safety across the U.S. and encourage all stakeholders to engage.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Mission

The FAA’s mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. We accomplish this mission by ensuring that all those who utilize our airspace operate safely and responsibly.

The Purpose of National Drone Safety Awareness Week

National Drone Safety Awareness Week will help educate the public about drone safety by highlighting how key sectors of the drone community are engaging with the public and spreading awareness throughout all 50 states on specific focus areas. It can also be an opportunity for drone stakeholders and users to kick off new safety initiatives.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, Admin, airborne LiDAR, Business Development, Certifications, Drones, Education, Government, Orgs, remote sensing, training, UAS, UAVs | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

STEM Program Learns About the Use of 3D Laser Scanning

Posted on October 20, 2019 by lidar
Photo of STEM Students Learn About Lidar

STEM Students Learn About Lidar

Wednesday afternoon University of Arkansas Fort Smith Students in the STEM Living Learning Community convened at the Fort Smith Regional Airport to experience 3-D Laser scanning, also known as light detection and ranging technology (LiDAR,) in action.

The UAFS Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics students teamed up with young engineers from HSA Engineering and Morrison-Shipley Engineers Inc., to gain a greater understanding of the principles of LiDAR technology and its real-world applications for mechanical and electrical engineers.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, Education, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Research, Safety, Sensors, Surveying, The Industry, training, Young Geospatial Professional | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lake Michigan Shoreline Rapidly Changing

Posted on October 19, 2019 by lidar
Photo of Lake Michigan Shoreline Monitored with Lidar

Lake Michigan Shoreline Monitored with Lidar

The Purdue research team uses this drone fitted with a LiDAR device to measure coastal erosion at southern Lake Michigan.

From an article in Purdue Engineering.

Around Lake Michigan, coastal erosion is progressing so rapidly that beachfront properties soon could be located in the lake itself, Purdue Civil Engineering researchers say.

Since May 2018, Cary Troy, associate professor of civil engineering, and Ayman Habib, the Thomas A. Page Professor of Civil Engineering, have been using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) system, along with satellite images, to quantify coastal erosion around Lake Michigan. According to their findings, the lake’s water levels are now at near-record highs, and the entire coastline is eroding at a very alarming rate. Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, airborne LiDAR, bathymetric, Civil Engineering, Data, Environmental, Hydrographic LiDAR, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, point clouds, remote sensing, Research, Sensors, UAS, UAVs, Young Geospatial Professional | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

RIEGL North America Training Symposium Recap

Posted on October 18, 2019 by lidar
Photo of RIEGL North America

RIEGL North America

Billed as a training symposium, the RIEGL North America event this week was all of that and much more. These relatively small, customer-focused events are the best for gaining knowledge, making connections with the vendor and networking with your peers.

RIEGL may have just celebrated 40 years in the lidar business, but the excitement and company spirit/culture makes it feel like an exciting start-up. They have an incredible team of highly motivated and capable people, both on the technical side and sales/marketing. Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, airborne LiDAR, BIM, Business Development, Conferences, Construction, Education, Environmental, Feature Extraction, Forensics, Forestry, Full waveform, geodetic, Geomatics, GIS, GNSS, GPS, Hardware, Historic Preservation, Hydrographic LiDAR, Indoor Mapping, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, Marketing, Mining, Mobile LiDAR, Photogrammetry, point clouds, remote sensing, Research, Software, Surveying, Surveying Engineering, UAS, UAVs | Tagged | Leave a comment

Last Supper Site Preserved with 3D Laser Scanning

Posted on October 17, 2019 by lidar

This in-depth article features the 3D laser scanning of what is claimed to be the site of the Last Supper.

From an article in Fox News by James Rogers

poin cloud - Last Supper Room - The Cenacle - Alex Wiegmann, IAA

Last Supper Room – The Cenacle – Alex Wiegmann, IAA

The room venerated as the site of Jesus’ Last Supper has been revealed in stunning detail thanks to remarkable 3D laser scanning technology.

A Christian holy site, the Cenacle (from the Latin for ‘dining room’), is located on the upper floor of the King David’s Tomb complex on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, archaeology, art, cultural heritage, Feature Extraction, Historic Preservation, Indoor Mapping, Laser Scanning, point clouds, Research | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Monitoring the Helheim Glacier with Lidar

Posted on October 16, 2019 by lidar
image of Monitoring the Helheim Glacier with Lidar

Monitoring the Helheim Glacier with Lidar

One of the outstanding presentations at the RIEGL Training Symposium yesterday came from David Finnegan at the the U.S. ACE CRREL lab in Hanover, NH. He has developed an impressive lidar data collection system for monitoring the massive Helheim Glacier in Greenland.

This is a portion of an article in Science.

As befits its mythical name, the domain of the Norse god of the dead, Helheim is truly an arbiter of Greenland’s fate. The glacier is one of the ice sheet’s primary drains, sliding into the sea at 8 kilometers per year and accounting for 4% of the ice sheet’s annual mass loss. Its towering front, as tall as the Statue of Liberty, measures 6 kilometers across. Sea ice shed from the glacier chokes the fjord for tens of kilometers. The glacier’s terminus has behaved erratically over the past 15 years, first retreating by 5 kilometers from 2002 to 2005 and then advancing and stabilizing for nearly 10 years. Then, in 2014, a more severe retreat began, sending the terminus 2 kilometers beyond its previous low. Meanwhile, the glacier has thinned by more than 100 meters, leaving a telltale “bathtub ring” high on the rock around the fjord.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, Environmental, Full waveform, GNSS, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, point clouds, remote sensing, Research, Sensors, US Army, Young Geospatial Professional | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

North America Training Symposium Kicks Off Today

Posted on October 15, 2019 by lidar
logo for North America Training Symposium

North America Training Symposium

I am at the Reunion Resort in Orlando, FL attending RIEGL’s North America Training Symposium for the next few days. This is a hands on learning event that includes hardware and software classes as well as presentations from vendors including Applanix and Euclideon. There are workshops on virtually all of the types of scanning.

The first day is going to be devoted to an overview of RIEGL technology and measurement principles. Day 2 features four tracks – airborne, unmanned, mobile and terrestrial. Topics include data acquisition, data fusion, safety, project planning, GNSS best practices, data processing, trouble shooting and more.

There are about 150 people attending with plenty of opportunity for networking at a number of social events. It’s a unique opportunity for customers to meet with the developers and key support people at RIEGL.

I’ll keep you up to date on the developments.

For more information on RIEGL click here.

Note – If you liked this post click here to stay informed of all of the 3D laser scanning, geomatics, UAS, autonomous vehicle, Lidar News and more. If you have an informative 3D video that you would like us to promote, please forward to editor@lidarnews.com and if you would like to join the Younger Geospatial Professional movement click here.

Posted in 3D Modeling, airborne LiDAR, BIM, Business Development, Conferences, Data, Full waveform, GNSS, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Photogrammetry, point clouds, remote sensing, Research, Safety, Sensors, Software, Surveying, Surveying Engineering, Technology, The Industry, UAS, UAVs, Visualization | Tagged , | 1 Comment

ASTRALite Collects Bathymetric & Topographic Data

Posted on October 14, 2019 by lidar
Photo of ASTRALite Topo-Bathy for UAV

ASTRALite Topo-Bathy for UAV

ASTRALite recently collected several data sets from the world’s first scanning topo-bathy UAV LiDAR system that can seamlessly map both above and below the surface of water.

ASTRALite appears to be making progress in the development of their combined topo-bathy UAV sensor, claiming to measure features underwater at cm-level depth resolution.

A series of technology demonstrations to validate the capabilities of the LiDAR system include a demo with the Applied Research Lab (ARL) at the University of Hawaii’s Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) on Coconut Island in Oahu, HI.

The LiDAR collected several bathymetric and topographic data sets that show the ability of the LiDAR to measure both top and bottom surfaces, detect objects, and produce accurate 3D point clouds at cm-level resolution.

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, airborne LiDAR, bathymetric, Data, Environmental, Lidar, Mapping, point clouds, remote sensing, Research, topography, UAS, UAVs | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Rapid Archaeology Supported by Airborne Lidar

Posted on October 13, 2019 by lidar
Rapid Archaeology Relies on Airborne Lidar

Rapid Archaeology Relies on Airborne Lidar

Archaeologists in Scotland, using what some are referring to as rapid archaeology have concluded a cutting-edge project which has revealed around 1,000 previously unknown sites on the Isle of Arran.

From an article in Ancient Origins by Ashely Cowie.

There is an island off the coast of Scotland which contains some of northern Europe’s most spectacular standing stones, megalithic tombs, and ruins of ancient farming communities going back around 6,000 years. I am not talking about Orkney or Shetland but another magical island only a short ferry crossing from Glasgow on Scotland’s west coast, which according to an Island Review article is more famous for its moors and mountains, arts and crafts, beer and whisky, than for its glorious prehistoric archaeology.

I am of course are speaking about the Isle of Arran in the Firth of Clyde where archaeologists from Historic Environment Scotland (HES) recently flew airborne laser scanning (lidar) devices over the land surface to generate a 3D image of prehistoric settlements, medieval farmsteads, and even a Neolithic monument, which the BBC called an “exceptionally rare find.”

Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, Agriculture, AI, airborne LiDAR, archaeology, artifical perception, artificial intelligence, cultural heritage, Deep Learning, Government, Historic Preservation, Lidar, machine learning, Mapping, Photogrammetry, remote sensing, Research | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Autonomous Mobility Solutions – A Glimpse Into the Future

Posted on October 12, 2019 by lidar
Photo of Beep - Autonomous Mobility

Beep – Autonomous Mobility

Beep is one of the first autonomous mobility systems operating in a real traffic environment on a small route in Orlando, FL. It is currently running at 15 mph which is too slow and is causing a less than a warm welcome by residents of the area. Thanks to my good friend – JFD for the heads up.

Founded by experienced fleet managers and technology entrepreneurs, Beep delivers the next generation of services for passenger mobility to fleet operators in planned communities and low speed environments across the public and private sector, including transportation hubs, medical and university campuses, town centers and more. From route planning to on-board interactive services, our offerings are designed to drive differentiation and innovation, and delight the passengers of our customers. Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, AI, artifical perception, artificial intelligence, Autonomous vehicles, Business Development, computer vision, Consumer, driverless vehicles, Laser Scanning, Lidar, smart cities | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment