Midrange Terrestrial Laser Scanning Systems (at Time of Publication)
(a) The
RGB
Imaging Laser Radar, which came out of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Environ-
ment (
ENEA
) in 2007. The scanner uses three distinct beams (red: 650 nm, green: 532 nm, and blue: 450 nm) in monostatic
configuration to create a color point cloud using the laser information alone.
(b) The BLK360 unit from Leica Geosystems. It is a time-of-flight system that was developed as part of a third pricing tier,
which formed around laser scanning as technologies matured.
(c) The Effortless 3D scanner is also part of this third tier, and like the NCTech unit (m) contains a multibeam time-of-flight
Velodyne
VLP
-16 sensor.
(d) The phase shift-based Zoller and Fröhlich 5016. It contains a low-light shooting functionality to support the high-dynamic-range
camera system inside. It can also use a
FLIR
thermal imaging camera to combine with the point-cloud information it produces.
(e) The time-of-flight Stonex scanner from Italy resold by Leica Geosystems under its GeoMax brand.
(f) The P50 time-of-flight unit from Leica Geosystems. It uses a fiber laser and has a range of up to 1 kilometer. Gregory C.
Walsh—who is discussed in part two of this article—suggested the fiber laser inside the unit and designed the high-dynamic-
range photography capabilities.
(g) The time-of-flight Topcon GLS-2000. It is based on the work of Jerry Dimsdale and the team at Voxis – the company Dims-
dale founded after leaving Leica Geosystems. Voxis was acquired by Topcon in 2008.
(h) The Faro Focus S, another phase-shift laser scanner to come out of Germany. Faro laser scanners are discussed in more
detail in part two.
(i) The time-of-flight Trimble
TX8
. The US-based Trimble entered into midrange
TLS
via the French company Mensi, which is
discussed later.
(j) The Riegl VZ-400i time-of-flight scanner. It has a range of up to 800 m and is one of four
TLS
units sold by this Austrian
company. Riegl was one of the first companies to sell commercial midrange laser scanners, along with Cyra Technologies (now
Leica Geosystems
HDS
), K
2
T (later Quantapoint), and Mensi (absorbed into Trimble after acquisition in 2003).
(k) The Clauss
RODEONscan
,
L.A.M.B.E.R.T.
, and Smartscan units stemmed from the company’s background in panoramic and
gimbal-head unit-based photography. Clauss scanners are priced in the same range as (b), (c), and (m).
(l) is the Sweep kit from Scanse. The Sweep unit came in a build it yourself kit – similar to early personal computers like the
ALTAIR 8800. It included low cost computers like Raspberry Pi. The Sweep is – along with
SLAM
based sensors produced by
companies like Velodyne in n) - an indicator that a commodity market had started to solidify around laser scanning technolo-
gies by 2016. This is similar to how microchips started to become a commodity item as personal computers evolved, as dis-
cussed in more detail in the second part of this article. The RPLidar from Slamtec was another sensor that could be used with
the ARM based Raspberry Pi at time of publication.
(m) The NCTech LASiris incorporates a Velodyne
VLP
-16 sensor and was primarily positioned for virtual and augmented
reality-based applications.
(n) Velodyne sensors stemmed from the
DARPA
Grand Challenge. They have become commodity sensors that were being heavily
used in mobile mapping and self-driving-car applications by time of publication. Units from Effortless 3D and NCTech demon-
strate that these sensors found a use in tripod-based systems as well.
(o) The RTC360 from Leica Geosystems. This time-of-flight laser scanner saw the return of Gregory C. Walsh as primary system
architect for a scanner developed by Leica Geosystems. The last one he had led the development of at the company was the
C10 (the final unit to use the green laser system suggested by John Zayhowski to Cyra Technologies).
RTC360
contains an inertial
measurement unit (
IMU
), as well as a series of cameras to help track its position in the scene it documents. It also has double
laser and imaging features.
(p and q) The Polaris and
ILRIS
-
3D
time-of-flight scanners from Optech. The company and its laser-scanning technology have
close ties to the Canadian Space Agency due to past projects developing sensors for space, such as the laser ranging interferom-
eter. The first
ILRIS
was released commercially in 2000.
(r) The Opal family of time-of-flight scanners from Neptec also has close ties to the Canadian Space Agency, for the same rea-
son. These scanners also have debris-filtering features built into their functionality.
(s) The Surphaser range of phase-shift scanners came out of Russia. The company also produces scanners in the submillimeter range.
(t) The Maptek range of time-of-flight scanners came out of Australia. They primarily stemmed from mining and industrial ap-
plications, as well as complementing Maptek software such as I-Site and PointStudio.
(u) The Trimble X7, released in September 2019. This time of flight-based system is more in line with the Zoller and Fröhlich
5016 (d) and the Leica Geosystems
RTC360
(o) – in that it incorporates other sensors like an
IMU
into its hardware. This makes
the registration of point clouds more automated and easier to achieve.
(v and w) The
VS1000
and
VS10/VS30
laser scanners from Simai Surveying Instrument in Hefei, China. The
VS1000
is a time-of-
flight scanner that uses a class 1 905-nm laser to collect information at a range of up to 1000 m. It collects points at a rate of
36,000 points/s and has a global navigation satellite system receiver attached for absolute coordinate retrieval. It uses a Canon
5D Mark II camera to add red, green, and blue information to the scans. The VS10 and VS30 also have a class 1 laser, collecting
information at a rate of 250,000 points/s over distances of 15 and 40 m.
(x) Hi-Target is a company based in Guangzhou, China. Its
HS450
scanning unit has been most comprehensively documented by
Shan and Toth (2018). It is described as having a 1545-nm class 1 laser, scanning at a rate of 300,000 points/s at a range of 450
m. It also uses an external camera to collect red, green, and blue information.
For a more detailed description of the specifications for each scanner, see their manufacturer specification sheets.
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