Three Ways Your Surveying Practices Might Be Falling Short Do you use laser scanning in your survey- ing work? If not, you might be missing out on key advantages that are rapidly becoming standard.
Locations and linework from a typical field collected survey.
How satisfied are you with your surveying methods? If you’ve studied the basics and honed your skills over decades of application on increasingly complex projects, you probably feel pretty confident in your expertise, as well you should. But what if that isn’t enough? If you knew there was a more effective way to do the work—one that would provide your employees and clients better results—would you reconsider your approach? For Donald L. Smith, PLS, principal of BL Companies, the question wasn’t theoretical. More than 10 years ago, he recognized the shift to 3D environments and launched a digital transformation initiative within his firm. Today, the company is a recognized leader in 3D visualizations and informative, actionable deliverables. BL Companies’ move into 3D laser scanning, first with scanning total stations and then high-speed full-dome laser scanners, highlight three key areas every surveyor should evaluate when considering a technology investment. 1. Level of Detail If you’re still relying on traditional surveying approaches for existing-condition surveys and as-builts, you might not be capturing enough detail. “There’s a much greater accuracy associated with laser scanning, but the amount of detail you’re able to extract is much greater as well,” Smith says in a webinar that is now available on-demand. “Scanning provides a detailed, accurate 3D model of a site that is essential for building information modeling (BIM) and clear communication about the project.” 2. Safety Getting access to dangerous or tight spaces without putting crews in harm’s way is paramount. “As surveyors, we never want to have to ‘play frogger’ in the middle of a heavily traveled roadway to get the data we need,” Smith says. “Laser scanning gives us a way to capture the data from a distance. We can use technology to maximize safety.” To illustrate, Smith recalls a project a number of years ago that required getting locations on the tops of sanitary man- holes, catch basins, gas valves, and other utilities in a busy roadway. Using a total station required two people—one to collect the data, and the other to watch for traffic. “That was the only way we could mitigate that situation and feel like we were going to be able to go home at the end of the day and not lose somebody to the effort, but it was scary,” he acknowledges. With the MS60 MultiStation, a high-performance scanning total station, all the data can be captured by setting up over a traverse point off the roadway and letting the instrument scan at up to 30,000 points per second. Pulling the data into Infinity office software provides access to accurate, comprehensive point clouds. “In one project, I realized I didn’t get a location in the center of a critical area for grading,” Smith says. “All I had to do was create that point in Infinity and import it into Civil 3D, and I was able to create an incredible surface. So now we’re spending less time in roadways, which means a higher degree of safety, and we have additional data that we can pull from. The safety benefits of laser scanning can’t be overstated.”
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march 2021
csengineermag.com
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