Education Markets Technology

Neo-3D Laser Scanning

  1. Neo-GIS is the less technical, consumer side of the use of the technology.
  2. The GSA 3D-4D-BIM program is perhaps an example of how best to position laser scanning technology.
  3. Is it too early for neo-laser scanning, or could we save 20 to 30 years of ramp up?

I have seen this prefix used in the GIS industry with regards to the fairly recent explosion of “consumer grade” GIS applications such as Google Earth and Yahoo Maps. I have mentioned in the past how the leader in GIS technology, ESRI, has worked for the past 40 years to build what today is probably a company with approximately $750 million dollars in annual sales. A tremendous accomplishment on the one hand, but at the same time perhaps they were far too focused on the core technology to see how it could be much more widely applied.

Is there a lesson that the 3D laser scanning industry can and should learn from this? I believe there is. As an industry we need to begin to change the focus from the technology to the solutions and the value that 3D laser scanning creates for the customer. Of course there needs to be ongoing R&D on the technology front, in areas such as automated feature extraction, in order to sustain innovation, but the business development people need to move the conversation from laser scanning to how best to solve complex, real world 3D problems.

The lesson that can be learned from the GIS world is to look for existing widely used business applications where laser scanning could become an integral part of the ecosystem. I think the GSA’s 3D-4D-BIM program is an example of this, although it too is requiring lots of change on the part of the customer in order to implement. I am looking for something simple, like getting directions. It really was not all that big a leap for people to switch from using a paper map to using a digital map on the Internet. That was Mapquest. Then Google added aerial imagery and all of a sudden everyone was a neo-GIS user.

Perhaps it is too early in the growth of our industry for this strategy to make sense. Or could we save 20 or 30 years of technology adoption/learning curve by looking for high impact solutions that integrate into existing workflows and produce significant returns on investment?

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