Leica GS18i

Nobody?

https://surveyorconnect.com/community/gnss-geodesy/new-leica-gs18-i/paged/2/#post-532299

Ship one over and I'll tell you all about it next year.

@norman-oklahoma Although it seems impressive, Geomax introduced a very similar rover about 4 years ago, called "PicPoint". I'm sure it's less expensive than GSI18i and it works in X-Pad. Here's the link PicPoint | GeoMax (geomax-positioning.com)

@half-bubble?ÿ

I have a better idea. You ship me one and I'll tell you about it.?ÿ

I have had a GS18 I for a few months now. Also my first receiver with tilt corrections, and for doing topos the tilt is absolutely fantastic. Productivity increases noticeably.

The imaging is super easy to process in Infinity as others have already noted, not to mention combining data from various sensors. This is the primary reason why I went from Agisoft to Infinity for processing drone imagery also. The camera has some limitations of course but generally performs within the expected range. Steep rock slope? Use the camera. Busy highway? Camera again. Or when you don't need super precision but want full coverage, camera is great for that too.

For precise measurements, like building corners where offsets to boundaries are shown, I still use the robot for that. Not quite up to the task with the photogrammetry, would be super awesome if you could do that. Maybe the next iteration is a scanner integrated into the unit?

I don't use the camera very frequently, but having it available is really nice when you need it. If you're already set up for working with point clouds then the software expense and training is going to be minimal, otherwise buying a GS18 I will result in further investments for software to really take advantage of.

Thanks, Jacob. I have Civil3d at my disposal. Does this count, in your opinion, as being "set up for point clouds" or is there something else - other than Infinity - that I would need?

Tested one in a as-built we did with the total station and it does a very decent job, specs & accuracy as mentioned by Leica.
For our Topo work it would make it more possible to leave the total station in the car, the imaging is nice for the small pieces you can't reach even with tilt. You can instantly pick your points in the pictures and code these points with line coding there. So in that case no need for postprocessing in infinity.

For small zones the CS20 does the job, not sure if you shoot the full 2 minutes (Max. time I guess) that processing will be as fluent on the CS20, then the Win10 tablet would be a better choice, but then you have no keyboard fot coding.

@norman-oklahoma?ÿ

Infinity is the must-have, but I find that working with point clouds inside CAD is easiest to get to deliverables. If Infinity had a few of the Cloudworx tools, then probably I could do most of the work in Infinity. I use MicroSurvey CAD Ultimate which has a lot of the Cloudworx tools included. I haven't compared side-by-side to see how the full Cloudworx compares, however the points on grid, and ability to snap to point cloud points to draw lines in CAD is what I use most frequently in MSCAD.

If you're mostly interested in creating points from images only (selecting points of interest in the images) and don't care about generating point clouds, then Infinity will do what you need.

@norman-oklahoma Mark, we got a GS18i in January. I haven't used the camera feature a lot, have used the tilt, but in our work, lots of static occupations too. In testing this is my observations: I would say 3-5 cm is about average for coordinates picked from the imaging and the tilt observations are sub 3cm. Compared both to static vertical measurements. Very defined points help accuracy?ÿof image points.

The IMU needs motion to stay aligned.

You can NOT use the tilt sensor and log static data nor the camera feature since it requires a fixed solution that is aligned to IMU.

You MUST have a fixed solution in real time to use either the tilt or camera, no post processing of tilt data.

Range of images is fairly short, 10-15 feet is probably the sweet spot. For one the angles get too shallow and two the camera is fairly low res.

Length of each image group is 60 seconds at 2 hz, so 120 images. Of course you can start a new group.

I am running on the CS35 which is a rebranded Panasonic Toughpad, for the camera you probably want that bigger screen real estate over the CS20. In addition the CS35 has more horsepower and imaging is 2-3x faster than on the CS20. Downside is 10" tablet on pole isn't most brush friendly, but so far glad I have bigger real estate, plus you do have a full WIN10 box with you in the field.

Within the limitations outlined it works and quite well, grabbing XYZ on street hardware for example while walking down the sidewalk, etc. I could see building outlines, etc. that normally are not accessible to GNSS, small stock piles, etc being very good uses both for the discrete points and point clouds to determine volumes. Process of gathering and registering images is all automatic and you can immediately pick points in the field seeing what the software thinks accuracy is right there. If it isn't to your satisfaction, collect again. There is some learning curve to getting the collection down in the?ÿ field, distance from subject, walking speed, angle, path (arc works best), etc. but that is about extent of learning since images are automatically geo referenced in real time on the spot.

I have NOT used the point cloud feature from images as we didn't buy the license for that.

For $3500, the camera is worth it vs the GS18T version, gives more options for collection and for us the big one was ability to safely collect objects in traffic.

I was close to you a couple weeks ago, set control with GS18i for a project in Raleigh Hills area.

SHG

@norman-oklahoma?ÿ

for love or other valuable consideration?