Saturday Survey Pics....

I love my job too.

Is that a non-optical gizmo, kind of like the Trimble SX10?

gschrock, post: 423664, member: 556 wrote: Not Saturday, but Thursday was kinda cool... Trying out an automated crack detection/measurement system..
Just enough gaps in the rain to make it a pleasant coupla days in the mountains...

WTH is that?

Must be working undercover for the fuzz if he's searching for crack.

Jim Frame, post: 423699, member: 10 wrote: Is that a non-optical gizmo, kind of like the Trimble SX10?

It looks like an aquamarine SX10.

gschrock, post: 423734, member: 556 wrote: Well, you asked 😉

It's a Nikon total station, one of their newer ones. I've been looking at structural inspection solutions that do not involve being dangled in front of a structure and manually inspecting/measuring cracks - and need to be able to catch flaws very early and do change detection over time.
Have tried two-station (and/or drone) photgrammetry but that is not always easy to get the right views and can be very difficult to repeat with the same quality each time to do change detection at very high resolution. Had seen papers on ranging+single camera solutions (some call it the Oxford method) and was pleased to find out that Nikon had actually productized a solution of that kind.

This Nikon is simply a total station; no eyepiece, can be run from the on-board (the display is essentially a Nomad) and full or scaled down Survey Pro onboard, or on a DC/tablet. This has a particularly high res camera (after all, Nikon has a camera company)
.
The TS takes a series of shots on a surface to determine the surface shape and angle from the camera, then it does an array of zoomed in camera shots that are registered to the surface. The user determines a resolution, so the array can take a while. At 30m it can detect a crack 0.2mm (depending on contrast); further away, larger cracks; like 1000' for bolder gaps. The images for each surface are stitched together in TBC on a connected laptop, then the crack mapping is done. It looks for individual crack segments, numbers them, maps their location, and lists the widths. On repeats over time it notes the changes in width or new/extended segments. As skeptical as I should be about automated systems, this thing can detect and measure cracks better than I could hope to do dangled in front of a wall with a magnifying glass and micrometer.

In the photo we are trying another solution, to inventory/label/model/map the shape of bolder/segments on a potential slide and be able to catch even subtle movement on repeats. As a total station it was a pretty good gun as well. We had to use a cable to link up the laptop/TBC for the automated crack detection step. but I'm told they'll do WiFi soon so I can sit in the warm/dry truck and operate it. Doing more testing but so far seems to do the trick very well.

Damn that is s e x y cool.

By the way, I am struggling to find any links for more info on the Nikon nivo i.

gschrock, post: 423664, member: 556 wrote: Not Saturday, but Thursday was kinda cool... Trying out an automated crack detection/measurement system..
Just enough gaps in the rain to make it a pleasant coupla days in the mountains...

Hey, is it an available product in the market? I tried googling but nothing comes out. I see potential in this also. Could you drop me an email too? Cheers!