- The ASPRS in conjunction with ACSM and MAPPS has developed a new guideline for the procurement of professional services including LiDAR mapping.
- This is the result of over 3 years of work, establishing qualifications, not price as the primary method of selection.
- The Guidelines can be used as a resource to educate novice customers about the technology and process, while reducing the likelihood of a low ball price being submitted.
The ASPRS has just announced the availability of their new Guideline for Procurement of Professional Services. This document is the result of nearly 3 years of work by the committee, which included representatives from MAPPS and the ACSM. The document is intended to cover the procurement of LiDAR mapping as well as other “related remote sensor-based geospatial mapping services.
A quick review of the document reveals that this is intended to be used for the procurement of what are emphasized to be professional services, in contrast with technical services and/or products. This is a critical point when it comes to government procurement as this is where the Brooks Act, which applies to the federal government’s procurement of architectural and engineering services can be referenced. The reason that this is important is that the Brooks Act requires that the selection process is be based on qualifications and experience, not price, as do the new Procurement Guidelines being discussed.
The important takeaway here is that the new Guidelines are a valuable resource for your novice customers. I have heard from nearly every service provider that they have to spend a lot of valuable time educating their prospective customers on the basic technology, services and deliverables. The new Guidelines will not eliminate this, but it is certainly going to provide an independent, trusted source of information that will also tend to reduce the issue of “low balling”.
Although not specifically referenced, I believe the document can be applied to mobile as well as fixed tripod 3D laser scanning projects. Of course sole source is always the best, but I am afraid those days are long gone.
As a large end user of LiDAR data, but someone who is not very involved in the procurement process I wonder why more specifications do not call for overlapping LAS tiles as the final deliverable? When interpolating LiDAR to raster (typical requirement for most GIS uses) one ends up with gaps between the interpolated tiles due to edge effects. Mosaicking LAS tiles is beyond the capabilities of standard 32-bit GIS packages. If the end user had access to overlapping tiles, overlapping raster surfaces could be generated through the interpolation process. During mosaic a cut line could be used to divide the overlap area with the end result being a seamless mosaic surface model with no gaps.
This is more in reference to some USGS LiDAR guidelines I saw that specifically stated no overlapping tiles, rather than the ASPRS guidelines. In the last month I was involved in one project and heard of another in which the lack of overlap in the point cloud tiles resulted in hydrologically correct DEMs with gaps between tiles (not very hydrologically correct).
Hats off of course to the folks at Applied Imagery (QT Modeler) who took the time to create a 64-bit software package that allows one to load in gobs of LiDAR data and create seamless surface models.