Pointools 3D Models Help NASA

The survey party mapped the four windows lava tube in the El Malpais National Park collecting eight individual scans each composed of 30 million points. The project was designed to understand the viability of laser scanning lava tubes and other formations on the moon and mars and to provide examples of the type of data laser scanning could collect and the information that could be interpreted from the laser mapping. 
 
"This project was a proof of concept for NASA to determine what kind of data could be acquired by sending a rover vehicle, equipped with laser scanner, into a lave tube or cave on the moon or mars," commented H Scott Halliday, Course Leader at Navajo Technical College. "From the Pointools model we can make an evaluation of the type of structures that can be picked up and conclude whether it is possible to determine water, ice and or micro organisms. This was great experience for the students and both NASA and New Mexico Tech have been impressed with the results."