Laser Scanners

My guess is because it's the only real new thing for the equipment (relatively) or because of payola, ie: trimble ads pay the bills, trimble has a new scanner. Or it's like hydrographic equipment and it's just that overly specialized.

It is being covered by the magazines apparently mostly because it is interesting.

Scanner prices will fall to about 1/3 of their current pricing very soon.

The "Press"

>So why are we getting inundated with all of the press?

Because:

a.) The equipment companies believe that the traditional land surveying market is dieing (there is less work to begin with and we're being more efficient with fewer crews, ergo less equipment sales);

b.) The scanning, machine control, and precision agriculture market is expanding so drastically that the total station/robot/rtk rover market has shrunk to near insignificant percentage of the their total business; and

c.) A lot of the "feature articles" in the trade press are provided to the magazines by the manufactures and the authors are on the payroll of the marketing departments, not the magazines.

That being said, I tried for the better part of a year (first as a consultant then as editor) to get surveyors to contribute feature articles that focused on their work and business rather than having to rely on "equipment pimping" with zero success.

There are a LOT of ways that the 3D scanners are quite productive and usefull,,,

3d scanners are not and will not be the most cost effective way to do a plot plan for a single family home nor will it be the best way to run a traverse.... but let me give you a couple jobs that a Leica Scanstation made a lot of money for the companies that i have worked for...

1) in construction for a 5 structure Scripps Biomedical research campus in Florida adjacent to Florida Atlantic University we scanned the collumns as they were constructed... from a couple set ups we could in a half day scan a building ... saving the GC tons of money in stucco backcharges.. and allowing us to know exactly where each collumn was in its full 3 dimensions (taking sections wherever anyone wanted)

2) In Massachusetts we were working on a project proposing the construction of building a structure straddling a boat channel containing a CSX line, an MBTA right of way, and the Massachusetts turnpike.. with the different rules and regs regarding access into these authorities jurisdiction, this project would have been going on into the year 3000 ie surveying in the ROW only between the hours of 1 am and 4am ... needing a 3 cop detail with 2 miles of barrels and 3 flashers... only working in one lane at a time.... this project could never have been done otherwise..

3) in a small urban redevelopment area we scanned the 3 blocks that were being designed..... in one day of field work we were able to get every square inch of the site... even though the design was not substantially finished allowing them to be much more dynamic on what they needed and where to pull the data, getting actual measurements at ever place they wanted instead of some interpolation or approximation based upon the nearest actually located points.

i have in my possession a Geodometer model 6 that in 1964 cost 10,000 dollars... thats 5 Ford Mustangs at the time ... it had to be carried in a LARGE hard case and took a car battery to run (and needed another to continue running if you wanted to work for a time)....

i submit that right now the cost of one of these machines is high... but that will fade slightly... not to mention that if you do the kind of work where access or precision is necessary.... it can create a market where no market really existed prior.

> i submit that right now the cost of one of these machines is high... but that will fade slightly... not to mention that if you do the kind of work where access or precision is necessary.... it can create a market where no market really existed prior.

I have been involved with the aerial mapping segment for the last 21 years, I can without a doubt tell you that GPS, digital cameras, IMU, LiDAR, etc. has revolutionized the business, expensive, yes, demand by clients, yes. Very little film anymore, AND much more rapid turn around on mapping products, and much more rapid update cycles, if we were still putting in control conventionally and doing everything manually from film, we would be doing a lot less work, it would be cost prohibitive, sometimes technology drives the marketplace changing the entire business landscape.

Not saying a scanner is for everyone, but they do have their place, obviously for a lot of work they aren't the right tool. In fact even though I work with aerial mapping, I haven't purchased a ground based scanner, probably will eventually as a complement to the aerial, just haven't been able to make a business case for it yet.

SHG

There's lots of scanner work out there.....it just may not be for the people most land surveyors are used to working for.

I've been involved in scanning for the past 8 years, and I can categorically say it has changed the way I work in a lot of situations.

I first got involved in it because my mother (a chartered land surveyor) who runs a 3 person company in 2002 saw the immense potential in the system - both in what we were doing, and what we could do with it. Obviously the initial investment was high - but the investment was designed to make our lives easier - and it certainly does that.

Obviously if all you do is boundary work, or setting out, its not going to help in the slightest. But in pretty much every other facet - engineering survey - building surveys, highways/road junctions - any hard surface topo - Volumetrics - Clearance Surveys - it is a immense time saver.

I do think that is the Key to it - time saving. I recently completed the site survey of a 300m building facade and associated topo in 4 hours - there is no way you could accomplish that in any other way. (See

for the data)

Another example is that we were asked to produce a 2m grid across a large concrete surface that was all over the place - this becomes a single days work including registration - processing - extraction / contouring and delivery - something that would have taken at least double that traditionally. Saving us time - but costing the client a similar fee...or lower in these tough times!!

But YOU CAN'T just look for that 'laser scanning only job' thats going to pay off the scanner. You have to view it as 'another tool in the box' as you do with GPS/TPS. You dont use your GPS in woodland, and equally you dont use your scanner for a ten acre levels survey. Use it for what its good at.

The beauty of it, is that it also allows you to take all the 'thinking' away from site when your under pressure - as you are capturing everything, to the office when you have time to think about what you need to detail, or what the client actually wants/needs.

Equally, the scan data is a deliverable in itself - animations, TruView, but more importantly - its a database - once you have scanned the site your effectively 'banking' the data should the clients requirements or the project scope change.

> There's lots of scanner work out there.....it just may not be for the people most land surveyors are used to working for.

Sometimes its just a case of asking the right questions of the people you are working for - if its architects or engineers - what information do they currently need (that you don't provide - or do they get it elsewhere?). If they want elevations now - are they likely to want sections e.t.c later?

Its a fantastic system, and obviously does have a learning curve - but once you can harness it - you'll wonder how you lived without it!!

Anyways - see Laser Scanning Example Animations for some other examples of what scan data can be used for.

Hope thats of use though - just my opinions.

Tim

I've been doing some research into scanning for a couple of months now and have found that there is work to be found with the equipment if you look in the right places. I have contacted a local industrial contracting company that is ready for me to demo some scanners with them to see which will fit their needs and hopefully mine. I did a quick demo on the newest Trimble and the technology is extremely impressive and easy to use. Laser scanning is so simple, in fact, that my fear of it is the button pushers of surveying (you know who you are) will quickly flood the market and further demean the profession.

In the end laser scanning is NOT land surveying and never will be, it's merely measuring, and a trained monkey can do that.

We've been successful with them. See http://www.underhill.ca/land-surveying-service/4/3d-laser-scanning/ for info. (OK, the "land-surveying" in the URL is misleading; we only use it on engineering jobs.)

I used mine on one job. We scanned a spillway that had breached. Very cool stuff. 40k points in 4 hours (mine is a 15 pt/sec scanner) and overloaded the engineers with data they didn't know what do do with.

Don't tell me I have to educate my clients, my clients are already pretty smart.

I wouldn't tell you to think that you need to educate your clients. Your clients couldn't care less about your work process. I would tell you to educate yourself.

Your clients care about their work process. Your clients are concerned about their concerns, their drivers, what is critical to them.

Learn how to integrate your new Laser Scanner process into their process. If you simply look at how Laser Scanning changes your process you are missing the big picture. Learn how to solve your clients' headaches.

Best of Luck.