Location: New Orleans, USA
ZEB Scanner: ZEB Horizon/ ZEB Discovery
Scan time: 30 Minutes
Colourised data was captured using the ZEB Discovery backpack solution.
Would you like to see a specific dataset that’s not on this page? Contact [email protected]
For 40 days, 15 participants set up camp in the Lombrives cave in southwestern France with no clocks or sunlight, and zero contact to the outside world.
Location: Falkirk, Scotland
ZEB Scanner: ZEB Horizon
Scan time: 20 Minutes
This data was captured as part of the Big SLAM Tour of the UK, read about it here.
Would you like to see a specific dataset that’s not on this page? Contact [email protected]
Location: Newcastle, United Kingdom
ZEB Scanner: ZEB Horizon
Scan time: 6 Minutes
Would you like to see a specific dataset that’s not on this page? Contact [email protected]
Location: Southampton, United Kingdom
ZEB Scanner: ZEB Horizon/ ZEB Discovery
Scan time: 30 Minutes
Colourised data was captured using the ZEB Discovery backpack solution. This data was captured as part of the Big SLAM Tour of the UK, learn more about it here.
Would you like to see a specific dataset that’s not on this page? Contact [email protected]
Location: Residential Street in Yorkshire, UK
ZEB Scanner: ZEB Horizon
Scan time: 10 Minutes
This data was captured using GeoSLAM’s car mount accessory with the ZEB Horizon.
Would you like to see a specific dataset that’s not on this page? Contact [email protected]
Hattorf/Wintershall
Facility, Germany
Cavity
70m Deep
N/A
Mining
Laserscanning Europe | German Dealer
GeoSLAMs German dealer, Laserscanning Europe, were recently tasked with scanning a 70m deep cavity in a mine 500m below the earths surface. Using the ZEB Horizon on a cradle, Laserscanning Europe were able to successfully and safely capture the data, and this is their account of the job.
Data captured by Laserscanning Europe
Scanning with the ZEB Horizon | Words by Laserscanning Europe
The object of measurement is located in the Hattorf/Wintershall mining facility of the company K+S Minerals and Agriculture GmbH. This is a cavity (underground, vertical conveyor system) about 500m below the earth’s surface with a depth of 70m.
The cavity no longer has the original storage volume due to material deposits from years of operation. The environment is dusty and it is expected that material will be deposited within the conveyor system at any time. In addition, the cavity is not accessible to humans from any opening and access is only possible through 1m diameter openings.
The objective was to obtain a three-dimensional survey of the conveyor system with highest possible resolution for inspection of the systems condition. Furthermore, strict compliance with all work safety regulations, with minimal risk for the measuring team, was required.
For this job, a mobile laser scanner was used. Thanks to its specifications, the GeoSLAM ZEB Horizon is ideally suited for the special conditions underground. The scanner is also suitable for surveying a cavity that is only accessible from above through a narrow shaft.
The scanner was mounted on a cradle, which was modified to minimise rotational movements when lowered. A 50m rope was attached to the cradle, which was used to lower the measurement system into the cavity.
Furthermore, trained members of the mine rescue team were on site to provide security and enable the scanner to be lowered and retrieved safely.
Workflow of the analysis
Following the survey, the scan data was processed using the GeoSLAM HUB software. The raw data, i.e. the processing of the point cloud from the data of the laser sensor and the IMU, is automated as much as possible. In the case that a scan was not automatically processed (e.g. because few geometric changes are found in the object space), the focus of the SLAM algorithm can be influenced by adjusting various parameters. Once the data has been run through GeoSLAM Hub, a complete point cloud of the cavity is available in .laz format. All other common point cloud formats can also be exported with little effort.
Since the scanner could only be lowered linearly on the rope, the earth deposits shadow smaller areas inside the cavity.
Results
The result of this scanning is impressive. This cavity, which is not accessible to humans, was successfully surveyed with the help of the GeoSLAM ZEB Horizon. The point cloud documents the dimensions of the cavity according to the requirements. Further missions with the GeoSLAM ZEB Horizon with similar objectives are already being planned and implemented.
Jim Foster has worked in the surveying industry for over 18 years, building a well-respected company with high profile clients from all over the United States. Originally the owner of a product design company, Jim saw the opportunity to begin a new adventure in the world of surveying and has never looked back.
SLAM scanning is becoming more commonplace in the surveying industry due to the ease of use, accuracy, and versatility of the handheld devices. As the technology continues to grow, so do the benefits of handheld scanning compared to traditional means of capturing the measurements of a building. Documenting large spaces is now as simple as walking around the property to capture a pointcloud, saving both time and money for surveyors and their clients.
Vauquois, France
Three times faster than terrestrial scanners
Several Kilometers
Battlefield Tunnels
Education
The Vauquois battlefield in France tells a little-known story of mining warfare during World War I. This area went through 4 years of combat which saw the hilltop village of Vauquois completely destroyed. In addition, French and German troops dug miles of tunnels under each other’s positions. This meant they could plant explosive mines to ‘bomb’ the enemy from below. Consequently, this bombing left underground WWI tunnels in Vauquois.
The WWI tunnels in Vauquois must be experienced first-hand to understand the difficulties and despair of living deep underground. Moreover, in wet, cold and cramped conditions for days at a time. Of course, not everyone can travel to France and crawl through the remaining tunnels in person. A group of researchers at Virginia Tech brought the battlefield to classrooms and museums with the help of reality capture and virtual reality (VR) technologies.
Combining efforts of the University Libraries, the Department of Visual Arts and numerous other disciplines, the Visualising History team travelled to Vauquois with funding from a federal grant in 2016. Over 10 days, they used traditional static scanning methods to capture details of the battlefield terrain.
However, when they attempted to scan inside the tunnels, their progress slowed down considerably as there were tight spaces that their scanners could not get into, which made the data capture process extremely time-consuming.
Before their next trip to France, the team acquired a 3D handheld laser scanner, GeoSLAM’s ZEB Horizon, with the hopes of making their time on-site more time efficient.
Due to the ZEB Horizon’s ease of use and speed of capture, the team collected scan data inside the tunnels more than three times faster than with the traditional stationary scanner. The time it took to scan the tunnels was crucial, as they were working on a budget, and the ZEB Horizon enabled them to do more with the time and money they had available. They also used the ZEB Horizon above ground, scanning the narrow trenches, wide bomb craters, and a church foundation.
The ZEB Horizon also proved to be more efficient as its software processes the data into a point cloud quickly. This meant that the team where able to see where data was missing, and go back and collect it, whilst still on-site. This created a much more accurate and complete virtual environment.
The ZEB Horizon was a gamechanger in terms of the speed of data acquisition.
The Virginia Tech team engaged the expertise of students and faculty from numerous departments – Visual Arts, History, Education, Computer Science, Mining, Engineering, and Cinema – to build a life-size model of a tunnel and generate the virtual environment of the battlefield. This allows students wearing VR headsets to ‘walk’ through the scene, experiencing it with both sight and touch.
The speed and accuracy of the ZEB Horizon are game changers for educational and historic preservation VR projects like this because of time and budgetary restraints. VR data processing is extremely time consuming, which means time saved scanning in the field makes grant money go farther in the computer lab. The result is a more realistic and believable experience.
The Virginia Tech Visualizing History team is not stopping with creating educational experiences from their 3D data collection. They are beginning to apply their VR capabilities to other commercial applications of mobile laser scanning.
Industry
Conservation
Time
Two hours
Location
Tucson,
Arizona
Size
42,000 sq/m
Scanned
Outdoor Film
Studio
University of Arizona GIS Program | Words by Prof. Chris Lukinbeal
Between tours and filming, Old Tucson Studios is a dynamic environment that couldn’t shut down to accommodate our University of Arizona 3D scanning team. With the equivalent of four city blocks and dozens of building exteriors and interiors to scan, we had to move fast. The team relied on the ZEB Horizon mobile scanner equipped with the ZEB Cam to quickly and accurately capture the geometry, architecture and appearance of the film set.
We want film buffs to experience Old Tucson Studios the way it looked during its heyday when some of Hollywood’s biggest Western movies were filmed there. The colorized point clouds generated with the GeoSLAM devices will serve as the core data set upon which 3D models, and eventually, Virtual and Augmented Reality experiences will be created. Archived air photos and drone imagery, as well as photogrammetric measurements pulled from original films, will also help us create digital versions of the movie studio at key points in its history.
The ‘Downtown Tucson’ main street and plaza stretch almost a quarter mile. Stationary scanners may seem like the obvious choice for long-range data capture, but there wasn’t time to set up and take down those types of devices. And we needed richer detail. Our scan technician held the mobile ZEB Horizon and moved quickly through the streets, dodging studio personnel and vehicles. She entered those buildings with real interiors and scanned them as well.
Scanning with the ZEB Cam adds context to the point cloud. The scanner with mounted camera was held steady at chest level. At each building, the technician stopped and pointed the device directly at the façade as if snapping a still photo, and then slowly turned around to scan the surroundings. This captured a rich 3D scan data set for each structure along with its context on the movie set.
“I’ve seen the quality of the point cloud and it’s amazing“
The entire Downtown Tucson portion of the studio was scanned in two hours. Afterwards, the technician processed the scans and video footage into a colorized point cloud running the ZEB Hub software on a standard laptop. Extraneous people and vehicles were filtered from the point clouds later with an open-source third-party software.
We will build 3D representations of the studio at major periods of its history – 1938 when it was built for the film Arizona, the 1950s and 60s when four John Wayne Westerns were shot there, and the mid-1990s just before a devastating fire. This will require merging the 3D models of today with archived air photos and film photogrammetry to re-create buildings that no longer exist.
In the future, you will be able to walk the Old Tucson Studios lot wearing a VR headset and ‘see’ how the site looked during filming of epic motion pictures such as Rio Bravo, Gunfight at OK the Coral, and Tombstone. Who knows? John Wayne himself might swagger out of the saloon doors right in front of you.
Industry
Mining
Scan time
15 minutes
per scan
Location
Nevada,
USA
Size
5 miles of
mine tunnels
Scanned
Pamlico
Ridge
Words by Robert Carrington | Newrange Gold
The state of Nevada is currently the fifth largest gold producer in the world. First discovered in 1849 by prospectors on their way to the California gold rush, gold and later silver caused several booms, with production really picking up in the 1960s thanks to new metallurgical techniques which meant recovery of more gold than ever before. Looking at old mines from the 1800s with our modern perspective provides great opportunities.
Newrange Gold is bringing new things to old places at the Pamlico project, which was one of the highest-grade gold districts in Nevada in the 1880s. Records of the mine workings are lost and the workings have never been systematically studied, leaving an enormous opportunity to map, survey, and sample the old exposures. With 5 miles or more of historic mine tunnels dating from the period of 1884 to about 1928, you can understand why no-one has done it before: it would be too time-consuming and costly to do with conventional surveying.
My company, Carrington Consulting, invested in the ZEB Horizon to expedite surveying, mapping and sampling at our client company, Newrange Gold Corp., at the Pamlico project. Systematically scanning the complex, interconnected workings has generated an unprecedented 3D map of the mine workings and has resulted in greater than 50% savings to date over conventional surveying and mapping techniques.
“Our experience with the ZEB Horizon so far is vastly superior to traditional methods and is an indispensable part of my exploration toolkit.“
In addition to revealing very subtle structural details of the geology, this mapping will form an essential part of modelling historic production and the remaining gold resource at the project going forward. This revolutionary hand held LIDAR scanning technology allows us to complete extremely accurate underground geological and sampling maps, volume analysis of material moved, and careful planning of exploration drilling to better calculate mineral resources in preparation for possible resource definition and mining at Pamlico.
Carrington Consulting’s team is scanning more than 5 miles of tunnels at Pamlico for Newrange. These workings extend over an area more than 1,500 feet long and 800 feet wide with a vertical depth of roughly 300 feet and form an extensive network of adits, tunnels, stopes and raises with at least 30 major entrances that are largely interconnected. Scanning is tied to established surface survey control for registration and orientation so the scan can be accurately carried underground. Underground survey control points are established using a series of spheres to allow Newrange’s geologists to later reoccupy the points to complete the geological mapping.
Many of the mine workings are less than a metre wide and in some cases, they are also less than a metre high following the gold vein, wherever it goes, forming a very irregular, complex network of tunnels and stopes. It would be prohibitively slow and expensive to do this essential mapping with conventional surveying or terrestrial scanning, but the ZEB Horizon makes it realistic for Newrange to accomplish this ambitious goal.
As always safety is paramount, especially when entering old mine tunnels and stopes. With the 100 meter distance capability of the Horizon no one needs to go into unsafe areas. In addition virtually every timber, ladder, and detail are recorded.
We have produced highly accurate data of mine workings up to ¼ mile in length in less than 15 minutes, which changes the game for Newrange at Pamlico. As Newrange gathers information on gold grades from sampling throughout these workings, we are integrating additional layers of information to build a comprehensive 3D model of the geology across the entire area of old underground workings.
Known control points are captured during a scan and automatically compared and matched to the associated coordinates during the processing stage in Connect. A rigid and/or a non-rigid adjustment can be made to the dataset and an accuracy report is exported, highlighting how successful the transformation was. Users can now view and manipulate the processing parameters to ensure a more accurate match between points.
Align multiple scans using a combination of manual and automatic processes. This workflow can be performed on two or more scans in the same project. Users have a choice to export the aligned scans separately or as a single merged point cloud.
Common data capture scenarios, such as UAV, outdoor, indoor, linear, and vehicle, have been characterised in Connect and data processing pre-sets for each environment have been defined. These can be selected at the beginning of the data processing stage allowing this process to be highly simplified.
Both methods match the scan data from a ZEB Locate system with the GPS data collected from the antenna to georeference the point cloud. When a scan starts and ends in the same place, this is classed as “closed loop”. “Open loop” is when the start and end position of a scan are in different locations. Standard SLAM practices apply to both methods of data collection.
Open Loop SLAM for the ZEB Locate is available on request – let’s talk about it.
Common static points are captured during several scans meaning that these datasets can be automatically aligned. A single point cloud is then exported as if the data was captured in a single scan.
Horizontal and vertical slices can be taken from any location within the point cloud. Horizontal floor slices can also be automatically taken at a given height above the floor as defined in the processing stage.
Mostly used in the construction industry, multiple point clouds can be compared and any areas that have changed are automatically highlighted. Point clouds can also be compared with CAD models – for instance to track progress on a construction site – and PDF reports can be generated to present this information.
Some SLAM software algorithms have been made available as open-source on the internet, but they are purely algorithms and not a product that you can take and use off-the-shelf. SLAM is most successful when it is tightly coupled and designed with specific hardware in mind. A generic SLAM cannot perform as well as one that has been specifically designed for a purpose.
Visual SLAM is closer to the way humans navigate the world, which is why it’s popular with robotic navigation. But in the same vein, vSLAM will have the same image-capture challenges as humans do, for example not being able to look into direct sunlight, or not having enough contrast between the objects picked up in the image. These can be overcome indoors, however, you may need to map a forest, tunnel or urban canyon. While SLAM technologies don’t rely on remote data (meaning you can scan areas where there is no GPS), you do need to ensure the SLAM technology you chose operate well inside, outside, in daylight and darkness.
Mapping a property is time-critical. Ideally, you want to make a single visit and gather sufficient data to create a highly accurate 3D model. Ensure the software you choose transforms 3D point cloud data into actionable information in real-time. This allows you to view and interrogate your data whilst still in the field, and make any adjustments, or collect missed data, then and there.
If you’re trying to map an enclosed environment (e.g. tunnel, mine) or a complex, difficult-to-access space such as a heritage building with tight stairwells and uneven floors, you need to use fully-mobile, adaptable technology. Wheel-based systems, often used with the vSLAM camera, will struggle with access. Handheld devices or LiDAR scanners that can be attached to a drone or pole and still deliver accurate results in a rugged environment are best for navigating hazardous spaces.
While vSLAM is able to provide a qualitative high-level map and sense of the surrounding features, if you’re needing survey-quality accuracy and rich-feature tracking at a local level, you’ll need to consider LiDAR. Cameras require a high-frame-rate and high processing to reconcile data sources and a potential error in visual SLAM is reprojection error, which is the difference between the perceived location of each setpoint
and the actual setpoint.
In order to deliver the depth required for high-quality data, a number of depth-sensing cameras are needed with a strong field of view. In most cases, this isn’t possible, especially as cameras with high processing capabilities typically require larger batteries which weigh down airborne scanners, or limit the time of flight. LiDAR is both faster and more accurate than vSLAM, and can deliver detailed point clouds without expensive (and timely) camera processing.
