Between the Poles

Mapping indoors with a smart phone

At the Spar 3D Expo and Conference 2016 in Houston, Texas, Avideh Zakhor from the University of California Berkeley showed remarkable products from her startup Indoor Reality.  I blogged previously about the technology when it was still under development.  The indoor mapping and modeling system she demonstrated was a 32 pound backpack with a collection of sensors as well as a handheld device.  The most important feature of the technology were sensors and algorithms for accurately tracking the six degrees of spatial freedom which determine the location and orientation of the backpack in a building providing the basis for generation of floor plans and Revit models (Late last year Indoor Reality released a Revit scan to BIM plug-in that automatically identifies walls and semi-automatically doors, windows and staircases to produce a basic BIM model.).  Recently Indoor Reality has released two handheld products for indoor mapping one of which simply uses an iPhone or Android phone and a subscription for cloud processing to create floor plans of multi-room indoor spaces.

The IR-100 software for the iPhone or Android phone enables you to scan a multi-room space and using cloud-processing to create floor plans in svg and dxf format, 3D mesh in ply format, and a summary report of area and volume. There is a 2D web visualization interface that enables you to see your progress as you take photos. You can also make measurements on the floor plan or on the captured images using this web interface.

The IR-200 system goes a step further enabling 3D visualization. Indoor Reality provide a light weight rig and panoramic camera that uses a smart phone to scan a multi-room space and then cloud processing to create floor plans in svg and dxf format, a 3D mesh in ply format, and a summary report of area and volume. It includes a 3D web interactive visualization interface, that enables 3D virtual walk throughs of the space that was photographed and measurement of distances on any web enabled device such as a smartphone or a laptop.

British guidelines for BIM targeting 33% savings in TOTEX to become international ISO standards

The BS 1192 suite of guidelines and best practices developed under the auspices of the BSI, the national standards body of the UK, are designed to help the UK construction industry adopt BIM Level 2 and applies to both building and infrastructure assets. These standards target 33% savings over the full life-cycle of a building or infrastructure asset. BSI has announced that beginning this year the BS 1192 British standards will become international ISO standards.

An introduction to BIM Level 2 for folks for whom BIM is new can be found here.

BS 1192 (2007 + 2016)

The principles for information sharing and modelling of BIM Level 2 are outlined in this standard. BS 1192 provides a ‘best-practice’ method for the development, organization and management of production information for the construction industry and provides the template for common naming conventions and approaches to collaborative working for use in architecture, engineering and construction. It is also designed to assist efficient data use in facilities management.

Will be replaced in 2018 by;
"BS EN ISO 19650–1 Organization of information about construction works – Information management using building information modelling – Part 1: Concepts and principles."

PAS 1192-2 (2013)

PAS 1192-2 focuses on project delivery, specifically, the graphical data, non-graphical data and documents that are accumulated from design and construction activities.

Will be replaced in 2018 by;
"BS EN ISO 19650-2 Organization of information about construction works – Information management using building information modelling – Part 2: Delivery phase of assets."

PAS 1192-3 (2014)

PAS 1192-3 addresses the recognition that the cost of operating and maintaining buildings and facilities can represent up to 85% of the whole-life cost of a facility. PAS 1192-3 provides guidance to asset managers on how to integrate asset management during operations and maintenance with the accumulation of information about assets during design and construction. The UK government has targeted cost savings of 33% across the entire life-cycle of a facility by implementing the processes outlined in PAS 1192-2 and PAS 1192-3.

Will be replaced in 2020 by;
"BS EN ISO 19650-3 Organization of information about construction works – Information management using building information modelling – Part 3: Operational phase of assets."

PAS 1192-5 (2015)

PAS 1192-5 outlines the cyber-security vulnerabilities to hostile attack when using BIM and provides an assessment process to determine the levels of cyber-security for BIM collaboration which should be applied during all phases of the life-cycle.

Will be replaced in 2020 by;
"BS EN ISO 19650-5 Organization of information about construction works – Information management using building information modelling – Part 5: Specification for security-minded building information modelling, digital built environments and smart asset management."

The announcement by the BSI did not include two other parts of the suite;

• BS 1192 4 (2014) outlines the UK usage of COBie, an internationally agreed information exchange schema for exchanging facility information between the employer and the supply chain.
• BS 8536-1 (2015) aims to involve the operator of the facility from the outset by documenting building performance requirements early in the design phase to ensure that designers design for optimum performance of a facility.

Bringing the games immersive experience to BIM and the AEC industry

The games industry is ahead of everyone in creating a 2D or 3D interactive experience with high fidelity graphics deployable on desktops, laptops, or mobile phones. Unity and Unreal engines are the leaders in providing a game development platform. Over the years there have been various efforts to bring games engines to the AEC world, but this involves programming and is beyond the technical reach of most AEC firms. At SPAR3D/AEC NEXT 2018 in Anaheim in Anaheim, Sanjay Mistry of VIMaec, described how Revit BIM models can be dropped into VIMaec's application to create an easily navigable, immersive mixed reality  3D model that contains all of the BIM data from the Revit file supplemented with building product data, all of the technical data necessary for architects, engineers, and builders to renovate or build structures.

VIMaec has identified why it has taken the average AEC firm so long to begin to use the Unity engine and built an application that can ingest everything in a Revit model into Unity in 15 to 20 minutes. The application, which supports a variety of virtual reality (VR) tools, allows people to collaborate in an immersive graphical environment. By working with architects and designers, the VIMaec developers created a solution that transforms Revit models to a 3D virtual reality model using the Unity game engine to create a Virtual Information Model (VIM) of a proposed design that lets users move around a proposed space as a virtual reality environment.

VIMaec has partnered with the renovation television show Office Spaces (same producers as the Emmy-winning show Designing Spaces). This TV program follows a company renovating its office spaces using the latest tools and technology. VIMaec software is used to provide the immersive experience of different renovation designs allowing viewers to walk through a building that does not yet exist.

Generating real-time 3D reconstructions using a UAV equipped with a digital camera linked to a laptop

Drones are very efficient at capturing a large volume of data that often requires hours of post-processing in the cloud to create 3D reconstructions that can be used for 3D visualization and other applications.  In his talk at SPAR3D 2018 in Anaheim Michael Jones of Lockheed Martin showed how a drone with just a photo camera and access to a GPU (graphical processing unit) on a laptop can use SLAM for real-time 3D reconstruction enabling advanced visualization and 3D modeling for immediate ‘in context’ information. The ability to generate 3D point clouds and 3D imagery in real-time as a vehicle flies enables applications that need to operate real-time, for example, the ability to automate the inspection of large critical infrastructure in real-time, comparing architectural drawings to actual 3D imagery for immediate progress updates.

SLAM is a technology that uses the identification of 3D objects from a 2D or other camera to identify 3D objects which can be used for 3D reconstruction. Applications include anything requiring 3D information such as collision avoidance, inspections, or navigation in GPS-denied locations. I have blogged about a a UAV equipped with LiDAR and using SLAM for navigation can be used in areas where GPS is not available. But LiDAR is heavy and expensive and requires an expensive drone to carry it for a significant amount of time.

Modern GPUs are designed for massively parallel computation and SLAM, which is based on triangulation, can be parallelized to take advantage of this capability.  Laptops equipped for gaming include very fast GPUs. In his talk Michael demonstrated how a drone with just a photo camera connected via a wireless link to a laptop can use SLAM to create a 3D reconstruction of an area in real-time.  The software, developed in Canada, is called Hydra and is commercially available. The pro Michael hinted at work underway that would enable SLAM processing onboard the drone.

An open source web-based platform for integrating BIM and 3D geospatial

BIM+geospatial integration is being driven by a trend toward infrastructure construction projects that require maintenance and/or operations during an extended period post-construction.  At the GEO|Design+BIM conference in Amsterdam, Sanghee Shin, CEO of Gaia3D Inc., gave a riveting presentation about a web-based geo-platform integrating massive, complex BIM models using open source geospatial libraries and tools including PostGIS, GeoServer, and Cesium and NASA WorldWind virtual globes.

Drivers of BIM+geospatial integration

Since the world became aware of the importance of human impact on the environment, it has become increasingly difficult to design buildings without reference to geographic context.  Many cities have environmental zoning and other types of by-laws that require designers to take into account neighboring buildings, infrastructure and vegetation.  States and national governments are developing building codes that require designers to assess the energy, water, emissions, and other environmental impacts of buildings.  This means that when designing and constructing a building or renovating existing buildings, the traditional approach ( often associated with a 0,0 coordinate system ) of design in isolation is no longer adequate for sustainable design.

Furthermore integrated geospatial+BIM is essential during the operations and maintenance phase of a building.  Utilities, transportation, emergency planning, first-responder access, energy performance, and evacuation management all require information about internal and external infrastructure.  A common geospatial coordinate system enables a comprehensive operational view of all infrastructure including internal and external structures. 

BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance.  A leader in this space, Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch transportation authority, began offering design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) projects a number of years ago which has motivated private Dutch engineering and construction companies to adopt an integrated geospatial+BIM approach to construction.  For example, the firm Royal BAM Group nv/BAM Infraconsult adopted integrated BIM+geospatial because of market developments including more complex construction assignments and an increasing demand from customers for service provision throughout the entire life cycle of a project.

It is indicative of the importance of the integration of these technologies that Autodesk and ESRI, 800 lb gorillas in their respective areas of BIM and GIS, have announced an agreement to collaborate to help bridge the gap between BIM and 3D GIS.  This is their seond attempt.  The first attempt, an agreement between Jack Dangermond and Carol Bartz in the mid 90s, resulted in a product called ArcCAD, intended for civil engineers and planners.

An open source geo-platform for integrating BIM+geospatial

mago3D is a new 3D geo-platform developed by Gaia3D.  It is open source and integrates many well-known open source geospatial products and APis. It is web-based so it is not necessary to install anything to run it. It has an engine for handling massive, complex BIM objects based on an internal format (F4D) that was created to reduce network data traffic, enable LOD (level of detail) control, support octrees, a 3D spatial structure that enables efficient spatial queries and (frustrum and occultation) culling.  Culling refers to the removal of objects that are not visible to the observer and is key to efficient visualization or large, complex structures. It integrates with two of the best known open source 3D virtual globe tools, Cesium (supported by AGI and Bentley) and NASA WorldWind, for visualization in a geospatial context.  Viewing BIM structures in mago3D has some similarities with a Google Earth experience. The source code is available under Apache and AGPL (Affero GPL) open source licenses.  Cesium is an open source project supported by AGI and Bentley.

mago3D includes a F4D Converter that converts BIM models in IFC (buildingSmart Industry Foundation Classes) format as well as 3D objects in .3ds (Autodesk 3ds Max), .obj (Alias/Wavefront) and .dae (Collada) formats into its internal F4D format.  Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) is a vendor neutral and open model that most industry software BIM tools including Revit and Tekla are able to export, although there is typically some information loss. The bimserver.org open source project provides an open repository of IFC models and offers a Java API to extract partial building information models from a repository.

The main components of mago3D are mago3D.js, a javascript plug-in for WebGL virtual globes and open source web server (NGiNX), map server (GeoServer), geospatially-enabled database (PostgreSQL+PostGIS), 2D mapping (OpenLayers, Leaflet) and 3D visualization (Cesium or NASA WorldWind). The mago3d.js javascript plugin is designed to run in a WebGL virtual globe environment in a browser so that moving/rotating objects such as BIM models and heading adjustment happen in-browser and are very fast. 

I went to the mago3D site and viewed a BIM model of a chemical manufacturing facility in South Korea.  I was impressed with the ability to zoom ala Google Earth from the entire virtual globe down to viewing the chemical facility in its geospatial context.  I could continue down to a very detailed, almost nuts and bolts, level showing that the LoD control and the octree-based culling algorithms make visualization very efficient, even for large complex objects.

The importance of this technology is that it shows that it is possible using the available open source, geospatial APis and tools - together with some genuine innovative development - to create an open, non-proprietary 3D geospatial platform for integrating geospatial and BIM.  Given the critical importance of addressing the cultural and technical divide between the AEC and geospatial worlds, a viable open source alternative is essential for developing the innovative solutions to the challenge of interfacing the two worlds. 

The other part of the solution is common, open standards. There has been encouraging progress on that front.  The major breakthrough in bringing the architectural and geospatial views onto a common footing is the OGC LandInfra Conceptual Model developed by the OGC in cooperation with buildingSMART International and approved as an OGC standard in August, 2016.  LandInfra  was developed by Bentley Systems, Leica Geosystems, Trimble, Australian Government Department of Communications, Autodesk, Vianova Systems AS, and buildingSMART International and provides a unifying basis for land and civil engineering standards including the OGC's InfraGML and buildingSmart International's IFC for infrastructure standards.  

Perceptality: new laser scanning applications potentially transforming construction

At HxGNLive Juergen Dold, President of Hexagon Geosystems which is responsible for the Leica Geosystems brand, gave a talk about perception and reality.  Perception is how we see the world, but perceptions are subjective and are not always reliable.  Reality can be quite different.  If you have ever worn a pedometer,  you will know exactly what he is referring to - the actual number of steps you walked or ran is often quite different from what you think you did.  Until now measuring things in construction and other industries has been so laborious that it is frequently not done.  Decisions may end up based on the "biggest salary's" opinion.  With laser scanning, photogrammetry, UAVs and other technologies measuring things has become several orders of magnitude easier and we can replace some of our perceptions with reality - Juergen called it fusing reality and perception - and coined a new term for it perceptality.  Since as Peter Drucker said, you can't manage what you don't measure, increasing the reality domain at the expense of someone's perception has the potential to dramatically change construction.

Juergen provided several interesting real world examples of how this translates into practice.

1 Vegetation management for transmission lines - inspecting transmission lines for vegetation encroachment in North America is mandated by NERC.  This is typically an expensive, slow process involving a helicopter carrying a LiDAR camera.  To capture the necessary density of points to be able to identify cables, pylons, and different types of vegetation requires flying at low altitude.  With the latest single photon laser scanner (Leica SPL100), it is possible to collect 80 points per square meter (m²) flying at an altitude of 2,500 meters (about 8,000 ft) as opposed to 3 points per m² with traditional linear laser scanning.

2 Urban mapping - urban mapping can also be time consuming and expensive, but with multiple cameras including LiDAR, photography, and near infrared it is possible to capture a more realistic 3D representation faster.

3 Scanning industrial plants - Cepsa (Compañía Española de Petróleos, S.A.U.) is a Spanish energy company who are scanning their chemical plants which requires thousands of scans.  A major software advance (Leica Cyclone) allows them to automate the registration process saving a lot of time.

4 Forensics - scanners in backpacks (Pegasus Backpack) or handheld scanners make it possible to walk through the scene of an accident or crime and capture trusted data without disturbing the site.  The data can be used in scientific forensic analysis and to visualize the results of the analysis in court.

5 Digitalizing AEC - The construction industry is one of the most inefficient industries.  $10 trillion is spent on construction goods and services every year. But whereas the average worker adds $37 of value for every hour worked, a construction worker adds only $25 per hour worked. Construction productivity has stagnated over the past decades in many of the world's advanced economies.  To attract the private financing that is necessary to build and maintain the world's infrastructure will require improving productivity.  Digitization can play an important role in this process or even be disruptive (transformative) as it has been in other industries. Innovative firms have increased productivity by 50 to 60 percent by infusing digital technology, new materials, and advanced automation, reskilling the workforce, changing business practices and pushing government to change regulations.

Our existing stock of structures will be with us for many years to come.  Maintaining this infrastructure is currently inefficient and expensive.  New technology can dramatically change this by making renovation more efficient and affordable.  A first step is democratizing scanning.  I have blogged about the deluge of handheld, low cost scanners that are now available.  Many see handheld scanners as potentially revolutionizing the construction sector.  Mantis Vision has offered a handheld scanner F5 for professionals for several years.  Originally targetted on the real estate industry, the Matterport Pro allows you to scan a house in an hour or less, upload the captured data to the cloud (Amazon Web Services) and a couple of hours later you will have a fully-rendered model that can be used for walkthroughs with potential buyers.  The Faro Freestyle is targetted on the architecture, accident reconstruction, civil engineering, construction, facility management, and industrial manufacturing sectors. 

I have blogged previously about the Leica Geosystems BLK360 and Cyclone Register 360  which together appear to be a game changer for professionals in construction.  It is a bit of a stretch to call it a handheld scanner, but it weighs only 2.2 lbs (1 kg) and is incredibly small 6.5 by 4 inches.  Unlike other "handheld" devices it is a full laser scanner and imager - it captures 360,000 points/second with a range of 0.6 - 60 meters with millimeter precision. It has three cameras, laser scanner, photo, and near infrared.  It's one button operation redefines simplicity.  It can capture a full 360 degree scan in less than 3 minutes.  Cyclone Register 360 allows automated registration of scans from many devices to be merged with "one-button" simplicity.

Democratizing 3D scanning to non-surveyor professionals

At the SPAR3D 2017 conference, Burkhard Boeckem, CTO of Hexagon Geosystems, gave a vision of the future of 3D technologies developed by technology firms such as Hexagon.  Among the well-known brands that form Hexagon Geosystems is Leica Geosystems, which recently introduced two new ground-breaking LiDAR scanners, the SPL100 and the BLK360. These devices are targeted on very different markets.   He used these devices as examples of how a new technology becomes democratized among a much broader professional community than the small number of specialists it was initially targeted on.

By way of background, up until recently LiDAR scanning was pretty well restricted to the surveying community and a few other specialist groups.  Leica has made LiDAR devices for these specialist communities for over a decade.

Single photon LiDAR is a new technology that differs from the current waveform LiDAR mainstream in that it can detect weaker reflected light where current devices need much stronger light.  The SPL100 is a single photon LiDAR sensor that collects 6 million points per second which means that planes can fly higher and still collect 12 - 30 points per square meter, depending on flying height.  Leica says it is 10 times more efficient than conventional waveform LiDAR sensors for this type of mapping.  The SPL100 is initially targeted on a very specialist, exclusive group of mapping professionals who scan large areas - states, countries and regions. 

In contrast the BLK360 is a very small (1 kg) imaging LiDAR scanner, which is targeted on a potentially much broader professional audience for 3D data, including many people who haven't heard of LiDAR or even considered whether 3D data might help them. It is very simple to use - it has only one button.  It can complete a full 360 scan of a space with a range of 60 meters in three minutes.  All subsequent processing of the point cloud and imagery to visualize the data is performed on an iPad.  The BLK360 is the culmination of laser scanning development at Leica which began in the early 2000s targeting the surveyor community.   The BLK360 is intended to dramatically expand the domain of users of high precision 3D data.

Burkhard Boeckem used these two devices as a model for how he sees new technology first being developed and introduced for specialist professionals and then being democratized among the broader professional market. 

Looking toward the future he sees single photon LiDAR and Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) as important breakthrough technologies that are very new and are only now being introduced into the specialist market. For GNSS-denied areas such as inside buildings, tunnels and mines Leica has just introduced the Pegasus Backpack which relies on SLAM to track the wearer in a building or other areas where GNSS does not penetrate.  The Pegasus Backpack appears to be targeted currently on a relatively small market of specialists.  Based on 15 years of laser scanning development at Leica, Burkhard Boeckem's message is that by analogy with the process that culminated in the BLK360, in the future we will likely see very simple "one-button" devices descended from the Pegasus Backpack and the SPL100 aimed at the broader professional market.

Getting technologies like the BLK360 out to people who could benefit from 3D data has become the current challenge according to Shabtay Negry, Senior Vice President at Mantis Vision who manufacture one of the earliest handheld 3D scanners and whose 3D technology is used in the Google Tango project.  The target for the BLK360 and other small, easy to use, and inexpensive devices are professionals who could benefit from  3D technology.  The introduction of the Xbox 360 Kinect in 2010 lowered the technology price bar for 3D scanners.  The Kinect and many of the low end scanners currently on the market use very inexpensive infrared plus photography technology to create 3D point clouds with associated images. As an example, the Matterport Pro, which lists for $3600, is such a device targeted on Real Estate professionals.  With these types of devices Shabtay Negry expects the 3D market to expand by 100,000 units in two to three years.  As examples of the types of professionals for whom 3D technology provides benefits he mentioned plumbers, upholsterers, insurance adjusters and many more.  Honeywell Logistics, who are not 3D specialists, use 3D scanning for space optimization.  Price as a barrier to the adoption of 3D scanners has been virtually eliminated.  The Structure sensor is $400 and attaches to iPad devices.  Mantis Vision promises to make its technology available for everyone - being able to scan an object, share the 3D model online, and send it to a 3D printer—from a smartphone.  Mantis Vision was working with the Google Tango project (now deprecated and replaced by ARCore) to make 3D scanning available on an Android tablet.

Mixed reality in the construction industry is becoming a reality

At the SPAR3D 2017 conference in Houston, I had the distinct feeling that we are on the cusp of an important inflection point where technology has evolved to the point that it is going to transform the world's construction sector.  Handheld scanners and mixed reality are two of the technologies that are set to revolutionize construction.  According to Gartner mixed reality is poised to attain what Gartner calls the plateau of productivity where a new technology is applied to real-world problems on a global scale.

In many countries with advanced economies the construction sector, which contributes about $ 10 trillion annually to the world's GDP, has not experienced improvement in productivity for 50 years.  During this same period productivity in the non-farm general industrial sector has more than doubled.  That means that the value produced by an hour of a construction worker's time is the same now as it was 50 years ago, whereas an automobile worker produces more than twice as much value as 50 years ago.  If infrastructure is going to attract the private investment from pension funds, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds that is required to maintain and build out the infrastructure we need over the next couple of decades, construction productivity has to improve.  The goal of improving productivity will drive investment in technology.  According to McKinsey the construction industry is poised for rapid digitization. Examples of the technology that is set to digitize and transform the construction industry were demonstrated at SPAR3D this year.

At this year's SPAR3D three companies in the construction sector, Gensler (a collaborative design firm), McCarthy (a commercial construction firm), and Martin Brothers Construction (a heavy civil construction firm), demonstrated how they were using mixed reality on real-world projects.  The tools they used include Enscape, Revizto, Revit, Sketchup Pro, Unity, 3dsMax, Umbra, Hololens, Sketchup Viewer on Hololens, Oculus and HTC Vive.  The application that wasn't shown this year, but I hope will be next year at SPAR3D, is Fuzor.

Cody Nowak of Martin Brothers demonstrated building a bathroom pod with Hololens.  The bathroom pod was designed using a standard design application sush as Revit or Sketchup, then projected onto the reality of a shop floor were it was constructed using the full-scale virtual reality projection of the design into the shop.

Gensler described collaborative design where two or more designers and stake holders can share a mixed reality space where they work collaboratively on a design.

McCarthy demonstrated how easy it was to work in a virtual reality space with a headset and handheld controllers.  They asked a member of the audience with no mixed reality experience to don the headset and controllers.  Within a few minutes she was able to move around in the virtual reality - we could see what she saw on a separate screen.  Using the handheld controllers she was also able to move things around in the virtual space.  She moved furniture and furnishings on the wall.  She even threw a stool across the virtual room.

Many of these mixed reality visualizations can be used on handhelds.  Workers in the field or during operations and maintenance can use these applications to inspect and query facilities to access inspection and maintenance reports for equipment they point at in a mixed reality environment.

The next step, which was not demonstrated at SPAR3D this year but I expect will be next year, is bidirectional communication link between the mixed reality environment and the authoring design tool, whether Revit or Sketchup.  This will make it possible for changes made in the mixed reality environment to be visible in Revit or Sketchup where they can be incorporated in the design.  The reverse of this is where design changes in Revit or Sketchup are visible in real-time in the mixed reality environment.

The key elements of mixed reality as it applies to the construction industry are

• bidirectional link between the mixed reality environment and the design tool enabling users to design in their authoring software and view the changes to their design in real time as well as create design changes directly in the mixed reality environment and send those changes back into their authoring software.
• mobile applications of mixed reality for people in the field or in an operating environment
• real-time collaboration in a mixed reality environment independently or simultaneously from anywhere on the globe from a computer or mobile device

We want to be able to don our VR gear and visualize the model we are working on. If there are design changes, we want to be able to make and update them in real time and then jump right back into the mixed reality environment.  We also want guests to be able to view the our design changes in the mixed reality environment as we make them.  Stakeholders need to be able to explore, review and modify projects independently or simultaneously from anywhere on the globe from their computer or mobile device.  We need real-time collaboration to actively review a design with stakeholders, or let collaborators review and make changes to the model in real-time.  This is not pie-in-the-sky dreams, people are doing these things already with the software tools I mentioned above.  I don't think the question is if, it is how rapidly these tools will proliferate in the construction industry.  BIM and digital scanning of different types have already proliferated over the globe and I expect with this digital foundation, these newer tools will spread even faster.

Handheld 3D scanners rapidly approaching consumer pricing

I have just spent an incredible three days in Houston at the SPAR3D 2017 conference.  There is so much going on right now in the 3D world with several key technologies just coming to fruition and finding broad application in the real world. 

 

Many see handheld scanners as potentially revolutionizing the construction sector.  Handheld scanners had a high profile at SPAR3D this year, with several vendors showing new products and many promising future products in the $400 price range.  One vendor is already selling a 3D imaging product that attaches to an iPad and sells for $400.

 

First exhibited at the 2013 SPAR3D, Dot Product has released a products DPI-8 and DPI-8X (short range) similar in its basic technology, multisensor (IR and photo cameras) to their first handheld.  I saw it first at the SPAR3D 2014 conference. Targetted at professionals, especially in the engineering and construction sector, their latest product incorporates SLAM and works with Android handhelds and tablets.  All the processing is done locally on the handheld - no cloud processing is required.  The captured point clouds are small - you can even cull the point clouds on the fly. The working range of the DPI-8 is from 0.6 m to 3.7 m. It export in PTS, PTX, PLY, and PTG. Binary files integrate directly with AVEVA LFM, Autodesk ReCap, Trimble RealWorks, CloudCompare,  ClearEdge3D, Veesus Arena4D, and PanoMap. The DPI-8X lists for US$ 5150.  Dot Product has been working with Google on Project Tango and says there is a $450 scanner in the future.

Mantis Vision has also offered a handheld scanner F5 for professionals for several years.  Their latest offering is the Mantis Vision F5-SR scanner/imager. It has a range from 0.5 meters (m) up to 4.5 m with an accuracy of a few millimeters (mm).  It also relies on IR and photo cameras.  It uses triangulation to locate objects and is in lower end of the the F5 price range of $20-50,000.  Mantis Vision promises to make its technology available for everyone - being able to scan an object, share the 3D model online, and send it to a 3D printer—from a smartphone.  At the end of May Mantis Vision will be releasing a new scanner, the F6 at a price of $15,000.  The F6 can perform dynamic as well as static scanning and it is possible to scan collaboratively with up to 16 of the devices.

 

A handheld scanner that garnered a lot of attention at SPAR3D was the Matterport Pro from Matterport Immersive Media Systems.    Originally targetted on the real estate industry, the Matterport Pro allows you to scan a house in an hour or less, upload the captured data to the cloud (Amazon Web Services) and a couple of hours later you will have a fully-rendered model that can be used for walkthroughs with potential buyers.  It provides a dollhouse view to see a whole property at once, an inside view for walkthroughs, and a floorplan view for a traditional top-down perspective. It relies on IR and photo cameras.  It is pretty well restricted to indoor scans and requires multiple scans for a room - scanning every 1.5 to 2.5 meters.  It is claimed to be 95.5 % accurate - it can be used for measurement for sales not for engineering or construction purposes.  Its biggest advantages are the speed with which you can scan a house, for example, and the small size of the resulting file.  It can also provide a 3D context for facilities management.  For example, it can provide a mechanical room walk through with tags on different pieces of equipment and a way of directing anyone to any location in the facility.   The Matterport Pro 3D Camera lists for US$ 3600.00 plus US$ 49/mo to US$ 149/mo for cloud processing.

 

I have already blogged about the Leica Geosystems BLK360 which includes Autodesk Recap Pro.  It is a bit of a stretch to call it a handheld scanner but it weighs only 2.2 lbs (1 kg) and is incredibly small 6.5 inches (in) by 4 in.  Unlike the other devices described here it is a full laser scanner and imager. It captures 360,000 points/second with a range of 0.6 - 60 meters.  It has one button and can capture a full 360 degree scan in less than 3 minutes.  All aspects of the operation of the scanner can be controlled remotely from an iPad Pro.  It can perform all the processing required for visualization in the field on an iPad Pro.  It lists for US$16,000 and includes a one year license for Recap Pro. 

 

I blogged about the Faro Freestyle previously.  It can scan objects within a range of half a meter to 3 meters away with a resolution of  better than 1.5mm with a image point density of up to 45,000 points/m² at 0.5m and up to 10,500 points/m² at 1m.  The scanner is attached to a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet for visualizing the point cloud as you scan.  It sells for $11,000 to $12,000.  It is targetted on the architecture, accident reconstruction, civil engineering, construction, facility management, and industrial manufacturing sectors.

 

The least expensive scanner shown at SPAR3D was the Structure sensor with Canvas software from Occipital.  A new screw-on lens increases the field of view to 120º so that it requires fewer scans to capture a room.  Its range is 0.3 - 5 meters with a precision of 0.17%. It is targetted on the home owner as well as interior designers, architects, and contractors.  It can be used to capture 3D models of interiors, share them, measure with them or convert them to formats supported by AutoCAD and Sketchup.  The vendor offers a Scan To CAD service, that converts scans into editable CAD files (.skp, .dwg and .dae) for use with  tools like SketchUp, AutoCAD, and Revit.  It retails for $379 - $499 and attaches to several models of iPad including the iPad mini 4.  At the end of April it will be possible to purchase Bridge, a headset that makes it possible to mix real world and virtual realities with an iPhone.

Bentley Systems and AGI support open source 3D geospatial

Back in 2006 Autodesk was the leading sponsor supporting the formation of the Open Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) in order to open geospatial technology to a wider audience.  Now Bentley Systems has joined with AGI to form the Cesium Consortium.  The consortium was started to accelerate open-source Cesium development and support long-term open-source Cesium sustainability.

AGI developed Cesium, which is a JavaScript library for creating 3D globes and 2D maps in a web browser without a plugin. Cesium is open source under the Apache 2.0 license.