Review
Will do
Review
> James,
>
> If you wouldn't mind sharing some of your findings on the Faro. We are going through a demo with a guy from Surphaser today and will be testing it in our parking lot as well. Supposedly the accuracy is much better than the typical commercial scanning unit. (Leica, Faro or Z+F)
>
> I would be really interested in the noise data you find from the Faro as well as any other strenghts/weaknesses of the unit.
Surphaser was OEMed by Trimble and they called it the FX, I believe the TX8 is a combination Faro 330 and Surphaser.
> In a typical range of 10-30m the data has still not fully overcome the waveform processing oddities that plagued it upon launch.
Mind explaining that a little more, please?
> That was probably a poor choice of title on my part for the content I had written.
> It seems that the title has drawn too much focus rather than the content
I still haven't read the original article but you do make some sound arguments here.
Titles are important. I guessed from "Death of Laser Scanning" that it was claiming lidar was losing out to close-range photogrammetry. I was put off completely by the paraphrasing by the OP here "LaserScanning vs. BIM".
Faro 330
What's the price point of the Faro 330?
Faro 330
65K
Flash Lidar anyone?
as in, full motion flash lidar ....
“...it did everything that the market leading scanner of the time did, but from a unit around a quarter of the size of it’s competitor – The Leica C10....”
The FAROs cannot touch the Leica C-10, Z+F 5010 or the Surphaser for structural steel accuracy and range.
"...One might be a bit cleaner (less noise) than the others (by a few mm), one might be more accurate than another (by a few mm). But how many projects do these tiny differences actually matter on?..."
You have given a perfect example of why your comment of "...What the vendors should be looking at, is what the survey company’s clients actually require..." makes perfect sense. Many Surveyors do not know their clients actual needs well enough nor the technology well enough to actually apply one to the other.
For proof, we need look no further than the lack of “Surveyors” leadership in implementing GIS or Machine Control. Most “Surveyors” could not wrap their heads around the needs of the Client.
To truly implement laser scanning, we must think beyond ourselves, our own work flow patterns. We must understand our clients' work flow patterns and take a leadership role in laser scanning implementation for the sake of our clients and our profession.
> “...it did everything that the market leading scanner of the time did, but from a unit around a quarter of the size of it’s competitor – The Leica C10....”
>
>
> The FAROs cannot touch the Leica C-10, Z+F 5010 or the Surphaser for structural steel accuracy and range.
>
> "...One might be a bit cleaner (less noise) than the others (by a few mm), one might be more accurate than another (by a few mm). But how many projects do these tiny differences actually matter on?..."
>
> You have given a perfect example of why your comment of "...What the vendors should be looking at, is what the survey company’s clients actually require..." makes perfect sense. Many Surveyors do not know their clients actual needs well enough nor the technology well enough to actually apply one to the other.
>
> For proof, we need look no further than the lack of “Surveyors” leadership in implementing GIS or Machine Control. Most “Surveyors” could not wrap their heads around the needs of the Client.
>
> To truly implement laser scanning, we must think beyond ourselves, our own work flow patterns. We must understand our clients' work flow patterns and take a leadership role in laser scanning implementation for the sake of our clients and our profession.
:good:
> To truly implement laser scanning any measurement or mapping technology or methodology, we must think beyond ourselves, our own work flow patterns the technology used and how we use it. We must understand our clients' needs and work flow patterns and take a leadership role in laser scanning implementation providing solutions using a wide variety of technologies and methods, conventional and unconventional, for the sake of our clients and our profession.
Any time we attempt to define our role or value as a profession by the technology we use, we enter a race we are doomed to eventually lose. You just can't run fast enough to remain far enough ahead of lay users to be valued at a professional level as an expert measurer. That becomes more true with each improvement in the electronic tools and methods of measuring and mapping.
Measuring tools become more and more simple to use to the point where anyone with minimal training can make reasonably good to excellent measurements. Mapping software is getting to the point, if it's not there already, that one can take the black box full of easily collected measurements, punch a button that says "talk to computer", punch a corresponding one in the software that says "listen to black box", and a useful map results in minutes with minimal input from the user.
We aren't needed for our knowledge of how to use these tools. We are needed to identify the needs of our clients to acomplish a desired result, determine the best tools and methods to meet those needs, manage the process of meeting those needs, and provide knowledgable advice of what the results mean and how to work with them to provide solutions to complex issues.