Category Archives: Lidar/Imaging
123D Catch for the Masses
How to Make A 3D Model of Your Sleeping Cat Stereoscopic imaging, better known as 3D, is not new. In the 16th century, “binocular” images were viewed cross-eyed. In 1838, Sir Charles Wheatstone invented the stereoscope to give depth to images. It presented two offset 2D images separately to the left and right eye of...
Wizardly 3D
Above: This hologram of a church in Texas was built from a combination of airborne and terrestrial lidar scans. More than just illusions, hologram technology is booming. Every once in a while a new product or technology comes out that makes you do a double take and think, “Wait, what is that?” This happened to me...
True 3D Design
New geospatial software combines the appeal of games with the rigor of applications. It’s never been done before: applying the rigor and disciplines of civil engineering, mining engineering, hydrology, and even classic survey field-to-finish to game-like 3D design. Sure, CAD operators have had 3D viewing for years, which they use to review the results of...
Blending Realities
A 3D design and visualization tool with phenomenal potential in the AEC world is coming from a collaboration between Microsoft and Trimble. Imagine designing an object, in 3D and color, using only gaze, gestures, and voice (GGV) commands. Imagine designing an entire building the same way—or modifying an existing one. Imagine moving in a physical...
Optical Monitoring
Above: Imetrum’s portable, long-range, camera-based monitoring system was used in the benchmarking trial. How reliable are optical monitoring techniques for civil engineering structures? Editor’s Note: Camera-based systems have long been used in industrial metrology for manufacturing, materials testing, and integrity monitoring. Now they’re finding utility in the “macro” realms of AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction). Many people in the...
Signs of Change
Above: This image, created with Woolpert’s online QC tool eQAS, illustrates the ability to review sign data from multiple perspectives and provides lidar and image data at the location of each sign. One collect, multiple uses. A mobile mapping system (MMS) is a versatile tool capable of creating both GIS asset inventories and design-level mapping...