Category Archives: Lidar/Imaging
Yan Fu, PhD
Principal Research Engineer, Autodesk – California, USA 3D, 3D modeling, 3D reality capture, 3D smart cities—these seem to be the zeitgeist of the present world of AEC and are touted as the path forward that will reap great benefits in engineering efficiencies. Managing and using enormous spatial datasets is a challenge, as anyone who has...
Surveyors as Movie Makers
Above: Each virtual camera position needs to be properly oriented for what you want the viewer to see. Credit: Rodrigo Garcia. Opposite: The movie maker places several virtual camera positions to form a path for a fly-through effect on scan-based movies. Credit: Leica Geosystems. In my last Geodude article, I drew an analogy between surveyors...
Geomatics at UAA
Above: Matt Santiago, current UAA geomatics student, is perfecting his surveying technique in the “classroom,” i.e. the South Fork of Chester Creek on UAA’s campus. The University of Alaska, Anchorage’s Geomatics Department continues to grow and place all its students in jobs at graduation. Matt Santiago arrived in Alaska wearing Air Force blue. When he...
Seen at Intergeo
xyHt staff were out in force at the world’s largest geospatial conference in Frankfurt in October, and here’s what we saw of special interest. Riegl’s Big 4-0 Riegl celebrated its 40th anniversary at Intergeo. Pictured here are Jim Van Rens and Dr. Riegl, the company’s founder. New Vector Extraction in 3D Extraction of useful information...
Tracking Wildlife from the Sky
Above: Alan Wilson studied how cheetahs hunt with his modified aircraft. Credit: Stuart Dunn. To uncover the source of the cheetahs’ legendary hunting prowess, a researcher used a customized aerial camera to survey, film, and track their hunts. As recently profiled in a BBC documentary, Professor Alan Wilson, head of a research department at the...
3D Cities from a Single System
Above: This screenshot is of CityMapper output. A look at the hybrid airborne system that combines lidar with oblique and nadir imagery. Over the last five years I’ve built and used a lot of 3D GIS and BIM models. Almost all of this has required the capture of stereo imagery and oblique imagery and a...