GIS touches everybody. During the 32nd Esri Users conference, held from 23 to 27 July 2012 in San Diego, USA, users were able to experience the full integration of cloud capabilities developed by Esri over the last several years. A wide variety of new technology was highlighted at the conference, and there was a strong sense that fundamental changes are afoot - the future for GIS is looking very exciting. Thanks to the latest developments in cloud computing within Esri software products, GIS is becoming relevant for an ever-wider community within organisations. Maps, area imagery, crowdsourced data, social media and... (read more)

2012-08-07 09:47:46

ArcGIS Server in Cloud

ESRI customers have the option to purchase a cloud-based subscription to ArcGIS Server, ESRI's server-based geographic information system (GIS) software. The annual subscription bundles a preconfigured ArcGIS Server instance on Amazon\'s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) infrastructure with twelve months of ESRI technical support and maintenance. ArcGIS Server Cloud Bundle provides customers with another deployment option for ArcGIS Server. Running ArcGIS Server in the cloud simplifies GIS server deployment and reduces the complexity of server management. It allows organisations to more rapidly meet larger-than-average workloads and demand by scaling up or down the number of ArcGIS Server instances without investing in... (read more)

2010-05-25 09:38:29

Lidar Point Cloud Segmentation

A Novel Framework for Processing Terrestrial Lidar Data

Terrestrial Lidar data has great potential to produce measurements for as-built building information modelling (BIM). Unfortunately, processing hundreds of millions of points, often contaminated by substantial noise, can be tedious and time-consuming. This article describes normal variation analysis (Norvana) segmentation – an automatic method that can segment large terrestrial Lidar point clouds containing hundreds of millions of points within minutes. Thanks to the high speed, point density and accuracy of modern terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), as-built BIM can be conducted with a high level of detail. But TLS captures not only useful geometric information but also unwanted objects, such as... (read more)

2019-05-10 02:00:42

Point Cloud Processing

Leica Geosystems announces the exclusive distribution of RealityLINx Model 5.4 - powered by Leica point cloud Engine (pcE) technology. RealityLINx Model 5.4 speeds and simplifies the processing of as-built laser scans into intelligent models that feed into popular 3D plant design software and into INOVx plant asset management software. The new Leica pcE foundation has enabled third-party software developer and Leica Geosystems business partner, INOVx, to add more powerful and flexible point cloud capabilities to RealityLINx Model software. RealityLINx Model v5.4 offers advantages over both prior versions of RealityLINx Model and alternate paths from scans to intelligent models in plant... (read more)

2010-12-17 10:48:48

Improving Point-cloud Manipulations

Leica CloudWorx-VR for 3ds Max, 3ds Max design, and Maya are plug-ins providing a convenient way for professionals to efficiently create more photorealistic and compelling models, renderings, and animations based on rich, high-definition survey data of sites and structures as collected by 3D laser scanners. The use of visually rich, high-definition survey data for multi-media applications such as marketing proposals, client education, and project communications has been steadily growing. However, traditional methods of processing as-built and topographic point cloud data and merging it with models and photography for multi-media applications have been time consuming. In addition, the quality of deliverables... (read more)

2010-06-23 02:53:55

Point Cloud Software Faster

Leica Geosystems announces major releases of its flagship point cloud software applications: Cyclone 6.0; CloudWorx 4.0; and TruView 2.0. All applications now include intuitive, panoramic viewing of point clouds plus intuitive navigation of point clouds using \"key plans\" and scanner location icons. The release also features other productivity and ease-of-use advances. Leica TruView is only a basic point cloud viewing/measurement/markup application. Processing point clouds into final client deliverables with Leica Cyclone and/or Leica CloudWorx is where many users spend most of their time; so, this latest major release extends TruView's intuitive viewing and navigation approach into the office workhorse applications... (read more)

2008-09-08 10:42:44

Point-cloud Preservation Plans

Saving China’s Cultural Heritage

The first step in the preservation of monuments and historic buildings is to completely survey and map the target; this is followed by digitised documentation for future research, reference or rebuild. With the help of point-cloud mapping and scanning technology, the problems of manual measurement and documentation can be solved fast and efficiently. There are nearly 300,000 monuments and historic buildings rated in the ‘protection range’ in China; the preservation, rescue and rebuilding of these structures represents a substantial objective. The traditional hand-drawn architect’s diagram, close-range photography from the ground, and surveyor’s structural plans express key parts and overall structure... (read more)

2011-04-27 03:20:33

AutoCAD Point Cloud Plug-In

Point clouds are increasingly beginning to prove their worth in the construction industry, but the ability to work with point clouds within AutoCAD has been limited. Pointools Model makes it possible to work with up to a billion scan points within AutoCAD. Existing architectural or engineering structures captured by laser scanning can now be visualised at full density within AutoCAD. The plug-in will display points in the viewport, allow snapping to points and fast viewing in section. You can quickly drill down to subsets of data using selection tools and the range of shading options delivers extra clarity... (read more)

2009-01-16 03:00:39

Background to Point Cloud Software

To be useful, the millions or even billions of 3D points generated by a variety of active and passive sensors need to be stored, organised, combined, georeferenced, measured and analysed, and these tasks all require software. That the storage of billions of 3D points is an issue in itself is shown in the article by M. Kodde (Page 16).The LAS storage format, initially developed for airborne Lidar, has become a de facto standard. The more generic E57 format based on XML supports meta data, 2D imagery and a broad pallet of point attributes. Nevertheless, proprietary formats are often preferred as... (read more)

2014-07-25 10:46:52

St Cloud University

Cloud Opens GIS World