One of the limitations of many terrestrial laser scanners is acquiring onboard photography that is representative of reality. This can be quite challenging and/or time consuming to achieve well – the main reasons are low resolution, poor exposure due to difficulties in obtaining accurate settings for a 360 degree scan, and the high chance of…
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After several months using a pre-production Topcon GLS-2000 laser scanner, we now have a full production model and have used it on a couple of medium-sized projects already, as well as some interesting tests. As the hardware for collecting large clouds of point data become more and more similar, the focus (pardon the pun) is…
Cardiff Bay is a great place to capture a wide variety of historic and modern buildings. We’ve used this as a test for all our scanning hardware, so started off with the Pierhead Building. This was built in 1897 as the headquarters for the Bute Dock Company and remains one of the most spectacular structures in…
Laser scanning involves the collection of millions of accurate points from a single scan position. By ‘conventional surveying’ we refer to total station (TS) or GPS surveys where typically one or two operators are required to record individual points. Some of the advantages – from our point of view – of the scanning technique (also…
Earlier this week we teamed up with Topcon Europe’s scanning specialists who brought their pre-production Topcon GLS-2000 laser scanner to South Wales for some field testing and feedback. Having seen the official specs at the launch in Intergeo, we were keen to test out its capabilities for real on some familiar test sites. First off…
Topcon have launched the GLS-2000 laser scanner – building on the success of their current lineup. We’ve recently carried out the first field tests of this instrument and will be presenting them here very soon. In the meantime, keep an eye on our twitter accountfor the latest updates! TerraDat has confidently endorsed the Topcon GLS range…
Not an official, or recommended test by any means, but the video below gives an idea of the time it takes to do a full 360 degree scan with this instrument in high speed, 12.5mm @10m resolution (including capturing images). The video was captured using a GoPro HD Hero 3+ taped onto the front handle of…
As mentioned in the previous post, the Topcon GLS-2000 is a survey grade instrument that can be attached to a standard tribrach to allow occupation and backsight measurements over a known point. Previous Topcon GLS scanners used a bespoke highly reflective target that could be attached (magnetically or adhesively) to a special T mount or any…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYeFvRv0x8I&rel=0 Laser scanning targets where there are high amounts of traffic (vehicle or pedestrian) can be problematic if maximum coverage is required. The Topcon GLS-1000 scanner has the facility to undertake “detailed” scan. In this mode, it repeats the data acquisition within the specified scan area two or three times. The final dataset will contain only…
Complex architectural scenes suffer in clarity due to points in front of and behind other data. Occlusion culling has been implemented in ScanMaster to improve visual clarity in point clouds. The image below shows a point cloud of a complex building. The aim is to examine the wall either side of the archway (viewpoint and…
The video shows a fly-through of a point cloud acquired with the Topcon GLS-1500 that was produced using ScanMaster 2 and Pointools View Pro. The data confirms that the height from the ground to the top of the towers is 156.2m. The scanner was 80m away from the building, demonstrating the scanner’s excellent medium-range high…
Case study of a very complex detailed site, demonstrating the high quality of the GLS laser scanner data Download data (ascii text file of point cloud with RGB / I values) – 8 MB Laser scanning is ideal for recording complex existing infrastructure, such as power plants, water works, refineries etc. This example from S.…
Modern opera house and streetview Download data (ascii text file of point cloud with RGB / I values) – 77 MB This dataset is a two-station survey of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. It demonstrates the excellent quality of data achievable with Topcon’s GLS laser scanner over 150m away from parts of the…
from the Glamorgan Heritage Coast Download data (ascii text file of point cloud with RGB / I values) – 52 MB Carried out as part of a research study into wave platform erosion, this dataset comprises two scan positions on the cliff top and one on the rock platform. Positioning was achieved using an RTK…
3 Scans of a Welsh castle Download data (ascii text file of point cloud with RGB / I values) – 45 MB Castle Coch, just outside Cardiff was scanned using three scan positions in around 3 hours on site (including surveying BS/OBS coordinates and explaining to members of the public what we were doing). Two…
Download data (ascii text file of point cloud with RGB / I values) – 3 MB Laser scanning is becoming more commonplace in accident scene mapping and forensic studies. This dataset was acquired at a field day for collision investigators and shows how a detailed survey of the shape and position of some large vehicles…