3D Printed Replica of Raphael’s Tomb 3D Printed
The Covid-19 pandemic is forcing all social venues – including museums and exhibits – to close their doors to slow down the virus’ diffusion. For the Raffello exhibit, which marks the 500-year anniversary of famous Italian painter’s death, Factum Arte created the spectacular starting point of the exhibition: a 3D printed replica, in part of Raffaello’s tomb from the Pantheon, with its 19th-century additions removed. Continue reading
iPad Pro to Include Lidar
Adding support to my claim that this will be the Lidar Decade and that lidar will become more well known by the general public than GPS, Apple announced yesterday that two iPad Pro models and some models of the iPhone will also ship with a lidar sensor.
From an article in Apple Insider by Mike Peterson.
At the most basic level, LiDAR is a time-of-flight system that shoots low-power lasers at an environment. Using the reflections, it calculates the distance to objects and points in the environment, and creates an accurate 3D depth map or rendering based on the results.
Apple’s own proprietary take on it, simply dubbed the LiDAR Scanner, likely has a few more tricks up its sleeve. Apple says it can measure the distance to surrounding objects up to 5 meters away and operates “at the photon level at nano-second speeds.” Continue reading
TruePoint Laser Scanning Delivers
Laser scanning is an ideal technology for Building Information Modeling (BIM) due to its efficiency, accuracy, and level of detail. Laser scanning accurately documents as-built conditions and proves to be invaluable in facility asset management and modifications. Laser scanning can also be used for reality capture and augmented reality in many aspects of architecture, construction and engineering. TruePoint Laser Scanning has been delivering high quality scan to BIM services for a number of years.
More About BIM
Building Information Modeling is more than just a 3D model. BIM is a process of creating and managing building data throughout the building’s entire life cycle. BIM encompasses not only the geometry and spatial relationships, but also documents features about the building such as the specific information about the type of materials used, the quantity used, and how those characteristics impact the building as a whole. BIM can be thought of as a database of information ranging from project cost management to the “as-built” 3D model after construction on through the operation of the facility which can be used to actively manage the process every step of the way. Continue reading
Multisensor Data Fusion
Bibby HydroMap, a UK-based company, has successfully completed an asset inspection survey of several bridges and the Weaver Sailing Club along the River Weaver in Cheshire (UK), an opportunity demonstrating its multisensor, marine 3D imaging capabilities in a highly dynamic and fast-flowing environment. The River Weaver is a marine connection between a number of businesses along the river and the Manchester Ship Canal and ultimately the Irish Sea, the integrity of which is paramount to their commercial operations.
Locate Any Obstructions to Navigation
The aim of the survey was to assess the condition of the bridges which span the river both above and below the waterline, along with the condition of the Weaver sailing club pontoon, river embankments and riverbed to locate any obstructions to navigation. The purpose of the survey was to: provide a baseline conditional survey of the marine assets, locate any areas of damage, identify items of debris/obstructions along the waterway and perform scour monitoring of the bridge abutments.
Unmanned 18 Wheeler Makes First Test Run
On 60 Minutes last night they reported on what is claimed to be the first test of an unmanned 18-wheeler on a public highway. This was in Florida. Amazing. The 9.4 mile test was performed by Starsky Robotics and it shocked the four long distance truck drivers that 60 minutes was interviewing. None of us had heard about this which makes me wonder if that has been intentional.
In any case it was impressive, however it appeared to me that there was a remote driver who did control the vehicle when the semi was not on the highway. 60 Minutes did not mention this which is a key stumbling block to the full scale implementation of this technology. Namely, how to get the big rig on and off the highway. Continue reading
There are two important announcements from the USIBD this week. The first is the availability of a free white paper with advice on how to select a building documentation professional. The second is you can register now for the USIBD Symposium this June in Chicago, IL in conjunction with SPAR 2020.
How to Select a Building Documentation Pro White Paper
The U.S. Institute of Building Documentation (USIBD) is pleased to publish its first white paper entitled, Building Better Within Existing Conditions. This paper’s purpose is to help determine whether it makes sense to hire a Building Documentation Professional and, if so, how to go about selecting them.
Re-published from library.
At minus 100 degrees Celsius, it is certainly cold enough for ice to form in the Mars atmosphere, but these scientists relied on NASA’s Phoenix lidar to finally answer the question.
Front Range Virga – No Lidar – Photo by Tom Yulsman
From an article in Discover by Tom Yulsman.
First, what about those clouds in the image above? If you live somewhere with wide open vistas, you’ve probably seen the phenomenon yourself: darkish streaks appearing to hang from a cloud deck.
This is called “virga” — precipitation falling from the clouds but mostly not reaching the ground. I’ve seen virga many times before, but usually in summer. This is when temperatures are high and humidity near the surface can be relatively low, causing shafts of rain falling from clouds to evaporate before the drops reach the ground.
Recovering Trajectory for MLS Surveys
Trajectory data are often used as important auxiliary information in preprocessing and extracting the target from mobile laser scanning data.However, the trajectory data stored independently may be lost and destroyed for various reasons, making the data unavailable for the relevant models. Recovering that data from the point cloud can be useful in certain situtations where that may be the only option.
Significant progress has been made in research on reconstructing scene models, extracting typical objects, and road surveys [11] based on MLS data. However, it remains a challenging task because of the degraded positioning accuracy at urban canyons and city centers, the large amount of data collected, the complexity of the road environment, and occlusion.
This study proposes recovering the trajectory of the scanner from point cloud data following the scanning principles of a rotating mirror. Two approaches are proposed from different input conditions: Ordered three-dimensional coordinates of point cloud data, with and without acquisition time. Continue reading
Neil Armstrong Spacesuit
On 16 July 1969, three men flew to the moon. Their spacesuits have since been kept at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, but nothing lasts forever. The suit Neil Armstrong was wearing when he became the first man on the Moon hasn’t been on display for 13 years – until the museum decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign in July 2015. Dubbed ‘Reboot the Suit,’ it has 9,477 backers and has managed to raise more than $700,000 (around £539,000).
From and Article in Wired UK by Libby Plummer.
On 16 July 2019, exactly 50 years after the flight, freshly restored Armsrtrong’s suit will go back on public display. First on temporary display, it’ll later become the centrepiece of the museum’s upcoming Destination Moon exhibition, slated for launch in 2022.
Dryland Vegetation Classification Improved with Multi-Sensor Approach
Abstract: The sparse canopy cover and large contribution of bright background soil, along with the heterogeneous vegetation types in close proximity, are common challenges for dryland vegetation classification with remote sensing. Consequently, the results of a single classification algorithm or one type of sensor to characterize dryland vegetation typically show low accuracy and lack robustness.
In our study, we improved classification accuracy in a semi-arid ecosystem based on the use of vegetation optical (hyperspectral) and structural (lidar) information combined with the environmental characteristics of the landscape.
