UAS Center of Excellence Will Be Lead by NUAIR

Posted on July 5, 2019 by lidar
Photo of Cuomo and Netanyahu UAS Center of Excellence Announced

UAS Center of Excellence Announced

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a wide ranging series of economic development partnerships between New York State and Israel that includes a UAS Center of Excellence. The administration and several major New York health care institutions have signed a series of agreements with Israeli entities in the UAV/drones, transportation, energy, cyber security, financial technology and health care industries.

Among the many strides and agreements made during this week’s trip, the Governor is announcing several collaborations for economic development in the following sectors:

Three Israeli Companies Locating at Unmanned Aircraft Center of Excellence in the Mohawk Valley.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, Admin, AI, airborne LiDAR, artificial intelligence, Autonomous vehicles, Business Development, BVLOS, Government, Hardware, Inspection, intelligent cities, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, Marketing, Orgs, remote sensing, Research, Sensors, smart cities, The Industry, UAS, UAVs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

3D Laser Scanning Can Create Value in Metrology

Posted on July 4, 2019 by lidar
Image of Cad Drawing 3D Laser Scanning Can Be the Right Choice

3D Laser Scanning Can Be the Right Choice

If you’re looking for more data in less time, 3D laser scanning may be a good choice for your metrology application.

From an article on www.qualitymag.com

Consider a CMM. If you need to get information for 100 measurements, that takes a certain amount of time. But with 3D scanning, this same information would be available after one scan. The accuracy is not a fit for precision machining applications, but the tradeoff in speed may make up for it.

Ian Scribner, portable 3D scanning product sales manager, industrial metrology business group, Carl Zeiss Industrial Metrology LLC, explains the differences in technology.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, Data, Hardware, Inspection, Laser Scanning, Metrology, point clouds, reverse engineering, Sensors | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Autonomous Farm Tractor Will be Offered as a Service

Posted on July 3, 2019 by lidar
image of Autonomous Farm Tractor

Autonomous Farm Tractor

Another autonomous farm tractor debuted a few weeks ago in California, bringing with it a whole new set of opportunities for large-acreage growers of fruits and vegetables — in more ways than one.

From an article in Precison Ag.

Kingman Ag Services, a partnership between Connor Kingman and Ted Sheely, who farms about 8,000 acres of wine grapes, pistachios, watermelons, cotton, and other crops in the state’s San Joaquin Valley, rolled out an autonomous tractor that will initially be targeted at wine grape growers.

Kingman, the company’s CEO, is a 2017 mechanical engineering graduate of the University of California, Irvine. He says he was able to cut costs by foregoing the use of GPS, instead employing cameras complemented with LIDAR to steer the tractor. Eventually the LIDAR will be discontinued from the system, allowing just the cameras to steer the tractor.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, Agriculture, Autonomous vehicles, Business Development, Data, driverless vehicles, GPS, Hardware, Lidar, Mapping, Robots, Sensors | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Nathan Eick – Geospatial Specialist at Aerial Services, Inc.

Posted on July 2, 2019 by lidar
headshot of Nathan Eick, Geospatial Specialist
Nathan Eick, Geospatial Specialist

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s probably….Nathan Eick.

Meet Nathan, Aerial Services’ Geospatial Specialist.

As a Geospatial Specialist some of Nathan’s responsibilities include preflight planning, fixed-wing and UAS collection, post flight processing and has assisted with maintenance.  He is also well versed in several different LiDAR, imagery, and video collection equipment and methods.

Recently, he received his commercial pilot license in April of 2019 and became Pix4D fundamentals certification in 2018.  He also holds his FAA Remote Pilot Unmanned Aircraft System license.

So you can see why he has the title “Specialist”.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, airborne LiDAR, Certifications, Hardware, Infrastructure, Inspection, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, Photogrammetry, remote sensing, Sensors, Technology, UAS, UAVs, Young Geospatial Professional | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NGS Webinar – GPS on Bench Marks 2022 Campaign

Posted on July 1, 2019 by lidar

diagram of constellation NGS Webinar GPS on Benchmarks

NGS Webinar GPS on Benchmarks

As part of modernizing the National Spatial Reference System, a NGS webinar will explain a transformation tool that provides a mapping-grade transformation between the current and new datums. Users are encouraged to submit GPS data on existing bench marks to improve the quality of the transformation in their local areas. These webinars have been extremely valuable educational opportunities. By registering you will get the link to the on-demand recording.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, Data, geodetic, Geomatics, Government, GPS, Mapping, satellites, Software, Surveying, Surveying Engineering | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

LevelS3D Delivered Beyond Spec Using Mobile Lidar

Posted on June 30, 2019 by lidar

Photo of Metro Station LevelS3D Delivered Using NavVis M6

LevelS3D Delivered Using NavVis M6

LevelS3D delivered results that exceeded the project requirements on a recent project where they mapped a Paris metro station using the NavVis M6.

LevelS3D is a French company founded in 2012 which develops 3D scanning applications for the next-gen tablets and smartphones, currently publishing a new pre-modeling point cloud web application.

LevelS3D is a NavVis mapping partner and recently had the opportunity to take on a surveying project from RATP Group, the Paris public transport operator and maintainer.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, Business Development, Hardware, Indoor Mapping, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mobile LiDAR, point clouds, Sensors, SLAM | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

PrimeSense 3D Scanning Invention Patent Updated

Posted on June 29, 2019 by lidar

Diagram of PrimeSense 3D Laser Scanning Patent Updated

PrimeSense 3D Laser Scanning Patent Updated

Apple filed a continuation patent in Europe on Thursday that covers a major update to a key PrimeSense 3D scanning and projection invention. PrimeSense, which Apple acquired in late 2013, originally filed this patent in February 2013. Apple was granted this patent in Q1 2018. In 2019 Apple was granted another patent for this invention and we noted at the time that the patent claims were updated to include the use of a laser.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, AI, artifical perception, artificial intelligence, Business Development, computer vision, Consumer, Hardware, Indoor Mapping, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, point clouds, Research, Sensors, Technology, The Industry | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Airborne Lidar Industry Understands Value of Standards

Posted on June 28, 2019 by lidar

Image of Webinar Airborne Lidar Industry is Setting the Standard

Airborne Lidar Industry is Setting the Standard

As I mentioned in a recent post, the airborne lidar industry has had the good fortune and wisdom to continue to follow the time proven mapping standards established for aerial photogrammetry projects. Lidar is basically treated as just another imaging sensor, although there are important differences such as it can’t be calibrated like a metric camera.

To learn more about 3D point accuracy and the USIBD Level of Accuracy (LOA) specification be sure to sign up for this important, free webinar by clicking here. If you register you will have access to the on demand recording.

To a certain extent, the size of the required investments in airborne sensors and platforms forced the adherence to standards. The fact that lidar was only capable of delivering mapping grade, 3D point accuracies left room for higher order ground control surveys to be used to check the results using the ASPRS, FGDC and USGS standards.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, airborne LiDAR, Certifications, Data, Education, Government, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Mapping, Orgs, Photogrammetry, point clouds, Quality, remote sensing, Research, Sensors, Standards, Technology, The Industry, UAS, UAVs | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Crawling Robots Use Cameras to Inspect Wind Blades

Posted on June 27, 2019 by lidar

Image of Crawling Robots Detect Damage

Crawling Robots Detect Damage

Drones and crawling robots outfitted with special scanning technology could help wind blades stay in service longer, which may help lower the cost of wind energy at a time when blades are getting bigger, pricier and harder to transport, Sandia National Laboratories researchers say.

From an article in Phys.org.

As part of the Department of Energy’s Blade Reliability Collaborative work, funded by the Wind Energy Technologies Office, Sandia researchers partnered with energy businesses to develop machines that noninvasively inspect wind blades for hidden damage while being faster and more detailed than traditional inspections with cameras.

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Posted in 3D Modeling, computer vision, Hardware, Infrastructure, Inspection, Laser Scanning, Lidar, Research, Robots, Sensors, UAS, UAVs | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

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Posted in BIM, Business Development, Education, Geomatics, Hardware, Indoor Mapping, Laser Scanning, Lidar, point clouds, Quality, Sensors, SLAM, Standards, Surveying, Surveying Engineering | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment