- I have recently had an article published online about The 3D Digital Survey Revolution.
- Local surveyors have had the opportunity to leverage incredible technological change over the past 40 years.
- We now have a new opportunity – 3D laser scanning and the 3D fusion revolution.
Continuing with the focus on the local surveyor, I had almost forgotten about an article, with the same title as this post, that I wrote last fall. It was recently published on line, and in case you haven’t come across it I will provide a few highlights.
First of all the impact of changes in technology on the surveying profession over the past 40 years have been amazing. I know many of you will not even be able to appreciate this, but I got a BS in Civil Engineering using a slide rule. In 1976 I bought my first computer – a Texas Instruments TI-55. When you turned off the power you lost all of your work, but it was still a giant step up from log tables.
The surveying and mapping profession has been on the leading, some would say bleeding edge of all of the major disruptive technologies – the PC, the laser, satellites, digital electronics, CAD, GIS, GPS, the Internet, and now 3D laser scanning. Question – has the average survey professional taken advantage of this technology to improve their standing? Unfortunately, I would have to answer no, at least in the US.
Now a new opportunity is presenting itself – 3D laser scanning, which is part of a much larger 3D digital survey, or my new favorite term for all this, 3D fusion revolution. A perfect example of the need for the surveyor to be one of the leaders of this disruptive technology is the debate I am having on how to specify real world coordinates for a data standard. This is the surveyor’s turf.
So as in the past with GPS, GIS and now 3D laser scanning we have an opportunity to take a leadership role. Let’s step up.