By Henk Key, contributing editor, and Roosmarijn Haring, editor in chief

We here present our biennial Product Overview on Rotating Laser Systems. In contrast to the Product Overviews on totalstations and GNSS systems, this survey is published only every two years, as these systems seem to undergo relatively little development. Perhaps the best way to emphasise this is to look at dates of introduction. While the introduction date of instruments in the other surveys averages one-and-a-half to two years ago, the average for rotating lasers is approximately four years; some instruments date back as far as 2002.

As we wanted to restrict this survey to the really high-end systems, we stipulated a minimum working range of 100-metre radius and accuracy of 5mm per 100 metres. These criteria forced us to exclude a number of instruments. Manufacturers like Agatec and Horizon, while submitting information on interesting instruments, unfortunately failed to meet our criteria. However, all the instruments we excluded will perform very well in less demanding circumstances. For example, inside a building a

working range of 100 metres is often not required. I recently visited the International Construction Fair in the Netherlands, where I noted a wide variety of these smaller, rotating laser instruments, sometimes with a working range of only 10 metres, all at very affordable prices. We know our Product Overviews are highly appreciated by readers, and are happy to announce that this year ten manufactures participated in the present survey.

The next survey will introduce a fresh approach; one befitting the new era embarked upon by GIM International!