All posts by Jeff Salmon
Back to Dinosaur Ridge
Close-range 3D photogrammetry solves mystery of 100-million-year-old dinosaur tracks. Back in the summer of 2014, I visited Dinosaur Ridge, just west of Denver, Colorado, as part of a demonstration of close-range photogrammetry given by CAE Mining, which uses the technology in its volumetric mine site analysis software. Dinosaur Ridge has become one of the world’s...
Will You Be Replaced by a Robot?
It’s difficult to open a magazine or look at a news site on the internet and not run across the “robots are going to take your job” theme. So, I’ve been doing a bit of reading on the subject, and I’ve come up with some very basic criteria for determining if your job may be...
GPR and Surveying at Hilti
High-tech tools for construction surveying can also be used by land surveyors and new surveyors. By Jeff Salmon Construction, both residential and commercial, is the second-largest industry in the world–surpassed only by agriculture. From site plans and stakeouts to as-built surveys and, now, BIM, construction has and will continue to provide a major market for...
Deep-sea Mobile Mapping
We’re all familiar with lidar-based mobile mapping from ground vehicles, and most of us are aware that aerial lidar is being used effectively to do shallow-water mapping along coastal and riverine projects. Deep-water lidar mobile mapping from an ROV? Well it’s a first for me. Most all of the subsurface surveys I’ve read about were...
UAS Survey of the Great Sand Dunes
The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is located in South Central Colorado and contains the tallest dunes in North America, spread across 30 square miles. It is an amazing destination, one that I first visited when I was 18 years old and have re-visited innumerable times since; I simply never tire of its...
Markets for Geospatial 2017: Part 2, Infrastructure
President Trump’s plan for investing in America’s infrastructure calls for $1 trillion in spending over the next ten years. The specifics of the plan are still a work-in-progress, but with largely bipartisan support, chances are that there will be a big push on infrastructure projects in the coming years, and that should translate into significant...
