Skip to main content

Laser mapping speeds up survey measurement

British scanning company 3D Laser Mapping is hoping to benefit from a £3 million ($5 million) fund announced recently by the UK government for police forces to purchase laser scanning technology for accident recording and investigation.
February 21, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
British scanning company 1639 3D Laser Mapping is hoping to benefit from a £3 million ($5 million) fund announced recently by the UK government for police forces to purchase laser scanning technology for accident recording and investigation.

Use of scanners and point cloud software to collect data is speeding up traditional survey measurement and, on motorways particularly, this can save hours of disruption when traffic is held up, a major benefit to the economy. Laser scanning works in low light, night conditions and bad weather and collects far more data than a total station.

3D Laser Mapping has already supplied one of the UK's road death investigation units with equipment, in this case a Riegl VZ-400 which can produce high quality graphics and detailed plans of collision scenes for court use.

The company claims greater detail and colour compared to other laser scanners.

The VZ-400 has echo digitisation and online waveform analysis for a high performance with accuracies claimed of 5mm at ranges of up to 600m measuring up to 122,000 points/sec in a 100 by 360° field of view.

The evaluation of multiple targets combined with a reliable, robust and lightweight construction makes the VZ-400 also suited to civil engineering the firm says.



















For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Machine control innovations
    February 15, 2012
    THE RECENT CONEXPO-CON/AGG exhibition has seen the launch of a wealth of new machine control technologies - Mike Woof reports A fast pace of technological development in the machine control sector is seeing new innovations come to market at regular intervals. The developments remain focussed on the three main technology suppliers to this market, Leica Geosystems, Topcon and Trimble, offereng a combination of systems using machine control based on GPS, total station, sonic units and industrial inertial gu
  • Sokkia’s “redefinition of robotics”
    December 20, 2012
    Sokkia has unveiled what it describes as “redefinition of robotics” with its SX series of total stations. The SX series are said to be compact and lightweight systems containing the most modern technology available. Sokkia says the SX’s high-accuracy robotic technology includes an advanced angle measurement system, RED-tech technology, reflectorless EDM, Bluetooth Class 1 long-range data communication, and what is said to be an extremely accurate auto-tracking system using RC-PR5 remote control. Combining t
  • Noise mapping software from SoundPLAN
    October 27, 2016
    Software specialist SoundPLAN is now offering the latest version of its sophisticated noise-mapping package worldwide. The 4.0 package has been trialled in Germany and can be used to calculate the noise emissions from roads and other infrastructure such as railways. The package is said to be designed for users who only have an occasional requirement for a noise map. The firm says that the software can be used to deliver reliable tabular and graphical results for a standard noise calculation while requir
  • Game-changing ideas that deliver daily life and continue to evolve
    December 14, 2016
    As World Highways celebrates its 25-year anniversary this month, we thought that it would be a good moment to take a step back and look at the exciting times we live and work in, and pick out a few of the game-changing new products, technologies and services that have brought about so much innovation in our industry over the past quarter of a century. Where will these new ways of thinking and working take us next? The global highways market has been transformed in the lifetime of World Highways by high-v