FARO at Intergeo 2009 with new scanner technology

28 July 2009, 9:27pm

Stuttgart, Germany - 28 July 2009 – FARO will present its latest laser scanners Photon 120 and 20, along with the new version of the FARO Scene V. 4.6 scan processing software, at stand 1210, hall 1 at Intergeo, the largest conference and trade fair for geodesy, geoinformation and land management. The new laser scanners can capture up to 976,000 measuring points a second. In a joint presentation with the Italian IT company Siteco, FARO will also be exhibiting the Road Scanner road mapping product on the exhibition centre grounds.

Visitors to Intergeo, an annual event being held this year from 22 to 24 September in Karlsruhe (Germany), can find out about all the latest developments in portable 3D laser measurement technology from FARO.

The new models, the Photon 120 and 20, are eight times faster. With a range of 120 metres, the Photon 120 has the world’s longest range in the category of phase-shift laser scanners. By contrast, the Photon 20 has been designed for scanning objects at up to 20 metres. Compared with manual processing, the new version of the FARO Scene 4.6 scan processing software enables users to post-process scans automatically up to 90% faster.

“At Intergeo, besides our new mobile scanners, we will also be presenting visitors with a current topic that is growing in significance - namely, the mapping of road infrastructures with the aid of 3D laser scanning technology. In a joint presentation with Siteco, we will be exhibiting the Road Scanner system for use in mapping entire streets. This system constitutes the next generation in the further development of mobile mapping systems (MMS),” says Bernd Becker, Director of 3D Laser Scanner Business Development at FARO.

About road mapping

Using the Road Scanner system, a detailed overview of all the components of a road infrastructure and large quantities of data can be collected, including geographical referenced images, vehicle routes and the street's longitudinal section. To permit the exact measurement of streets, the laser scanner is fully integrated in the Mapping Mobile System, and synchronized with the positioning system provided by the company IXSEA. While on the move, the laser scans its surroundings helically and generates a 3D point cloud. The positioning system uses a GPS receiver, an inertial measuring unit (IMU) and an odometer to calculate the exact distance covered. The high quality IMU computes the position and altitude of the vehicle during the frequent GPS outages.

Thanks to that the position and altitude of all the sensors (cameras, laser-scanner, geodadar) are perfectly synchronized, and their position and altitude can be computed with the best possible precision.

The post-processing software of Siteco includes performing functions to display images and point clouds and to take measurements with accuracies between 1 and 10 cm.

Siteco Informatica s.r.l

FARO

Geo: International