LiDAR News

LIDAR Assists SpaceX’ s Dragon with Historic Mission

lidar — Sun, 27 May 2012 14:34:37 +0000

It was a BIG day in space Friday when the private company Space X was successful at docking their first space vehicle with the International Space Station. What was one of the key technologies used in the maneuver – you guessed it LIDAR.

NASA reported that the “Crew used Laser Instrument Distance and Range (LIDAR) to determine the Dragon range (2780 meters) once Dragon crossed the R-Bar. Crew powered off the Dragon Strobe light via CCP at the end of Fly By demo. Dragon navigational system also functioned successfully.”

Congratulations to all.

U.S. Air Force Impressed with Laser Scanning

lidar — Sat, 26 May 2012 17:32:47 +0000

One of the most unforgettable trips that I was lucky enough to be able to join was a 2 day visit as a VIP to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. It was 20 years ago, but they showed us some amazing technology and we met a number of dedicated people.

In this official U.S. Air Force article the 46th Test Wing’s Air Force SEEK EAGLE Office located at Eglin reports on their recent purchase of a 3-D laser scanner system. They had no idea how much of an impact their Leica HDS 7000 would make.

Important to remember the people who make it possible for us to enjoy our freedom on Memorial Day weekend.

Native Support for LiDAR in ArcGIS 10.1

lidar — Fri, 25 May 2012 23:08:35 +0000

This video provides a sneak peak at the native support for LiDAR in ArcGIS 10.1.

Mobile Scanning in Helsinki

lidar — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:56:48 +0000

Mika Salolahti from TerraSolid sent me the link to an interesting video showing the results of a mobile laser scanning project in Helsinki, Finland.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Low Cost Motion Controller Accurate to 0.01 mm

lidar — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:39:26 +0000

Thad Wester provided this link to a short article on Geek.com and an amazing video from CNET. Leap Motion has designed a motion controller technology that has 2oox the accuracy of anything else on the market and is going to sell for $70.

You have to see the video to begin to understand it. There are not a lot of details about the technology on the website, but they claim it is patent protected, which would provide some answers. It’s all about the software – the device is nothing special. Now this is the kind of software innovation we need in the laser scanning world.

This is a must see.

Boeing’s Indoor Mobile Laser Scanning Platform

lidar — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:19:22 +0000

Looks like Boeing has plans to use laser scanning in the production of their aircraft – interesting mobile platform.

LIDAR for the Seacoast and Beyond

lidar — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:21:01 +0000

I live in the region of New Hampshire that is referred to as the Seacoast. Many people are not aware that New Hampshire has any coast, but the founding fathers were not about to let us be land locked. In fact, one of the most important colonial harbors is in Portsmouth, NH, home of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which is actually in Kittery, Maine, but that’s a different story.

Fay Rubin who works at the University of New Hampshire was instrumental in obtaining funding for a LIDAR survey of Seacoast New Hampshire. Actually a few of her GIS counterparts pooled their resources and put a project together that started at the Canadian border with Maine and finished in New York City. In all 9000 square miles were mapped to a 2 meter resolution.

It’s a very impressive result – kudos to all that made this happen.

The Need for Laser Scanning Software Innovation

lidar — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:41:32 +0000

I think most people in the laser scanning and LIDAR industry will agree that software capability continues to lag the pace of hardware development. Now that Bentley and Autodesk, two important companies that are not in the hardware business, have made acquisitions in point cloud software technology will this result in the next generation of point cloud processing software, at least in the infrastructure market?

I want to think so, but I still think the answer lies in a whole product solution where the scanners and the software work more intelligently together at the time of data collection. What do you think?

Esri LiDAR Data Demonstration

lidar — Sun, 20 May 2012 13:54:27 +0000

This is a quick look at how classified LIDAR data can be exploited with ArcGIS 10.1. The LiDAR demo starts at about 7:30 – impressive.

Esri Offers LiDAR Webinar

lidar — Sun, 20 May 2012 11:30:54 +0000

Esri is offering a webinar on support for LiDAR in ArcGIS 10.1 on May 24 at 3 times – 9 AM, 11 AM and 3 PM all Pacific Daylight Time – PDT. See the accompanying post with a video demonstrating the functionality and below.

There certainly are a number of opportunities to learn more about handling and exploiting LIDAR data.