Traditionally when a new pipeline is put in the ground, either its location and depth is only approximately known or it has to be surveyed by a registered surveyor. Now there is another alternative. At GeoAlberta 2018 is Edmonton Joseph Hlady of Lux Modus described how his company has developed a rig and software running in the cloud that allows this information to be captured in "near real-time" as the pipeline is constructed. The rig includes LiDAR and photo cameras which capture the trench and the pipeline by driving along each section before the trench is filled to record a point cloud and photos. The point cloud and images are uploaded for cloud processing and within minutes to hours a digital twin of the pipeline can be viewed by anyone with a browser that supports HTML5 including mobile devices.
By automatically detecting the top of the ditch and the top of the pipe, the location (x,y) and depth (z) of the pipe can be computed in real-time by the LuxGear or later in a GIS. Lux Modus uses the Unity gaming engine to enable 3D walk-throughs in virtual reality (VR) of the pipeline after the ditch has been covered. For example, this makes it possible for QA/QC people to use VR to identify weld points in the office rather than in the field.
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