Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by gsisman »

pburrows145 wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 11:22 am
bobbyf90 wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 10:19 am Thanks for everyone's opinions I will do more research and be in touch. For software I tend to use recap for its user friendliness with target less c2c and ease of assigning shared coordinates.

But to do registration on site and cleaning/georeference back on the laptop in recap would be great. Are these scanners cross compatible with recap? Many thanks.
My personal advice would be to not use RECAP for "registering" RTC360 data - or data from any first party solution. It will simply not handle the volume of data you will be producing on a daily basis with the RTC360. Do the registration first in Cyclone REGISTER/Cyclone REGISTER 360 and then export to RCP format (coming in April) if you want to consume it downstream in the likes of Autocad (or in your case, Revit).
Paul

This is fantastic news! Now if they combine that one feature with the addition of reading an LGS file and being able to Re-index the encrypted Register 360 Project files from their storage folder to another Register 360 install on a separate work-station (Just like every other Leica Software product has allowed you to Re-Register projects without re-loading them for the last 20 years) ......it will be more than worth the CCP cost!
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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by pburrows145 »

gsisman wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 11:34 am
pburrows145 wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 11:22 am
bobbyf90 wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 10:19 am Thanks for everyone's opinions I will do more research and be in touch. For software I tend to use recap for its user friendliness with target less c2c and ease of assigning shared coordinates.

But to do registration on site and cleaning/georeference back on the laptop in recap would be great. Are these scanners cross compatible with recap? Many thanks.
My personal advice would be to not use RECAP for "registering" RTC360 data - or data from any first party solution. It will simply not handle the volume of data you will be producing on a daily basis with the RTC360. Do the registration first in Cyclone REGISTER/Cyclone REGISTER 360 and then export to RCP format (coming in April) if you want to consume it downstream in the likes of Autocad (or in your case, Revit).
Paul

This is fantastic news! Now if they combine that one feature with the addition of reading an LGS file and being able to Re-index the encrypted Register 360 Project files from their storage folder to another Register 360 install on a separate work-station (Just like every other Leica Software product has allowed you to Re-Register projects without re-loading them for the last 20 years) ......it will be more than worth the CCP cost!
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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by scott.diaz »

Hi Bobby,

Obviously you should do your homework on all of these suggestions. All of these manufacturers provide nice solutions. If you are already familiar with the FARO workflow you will probably do yourself a favor by investigating the new FARO S series scanners as well. They come equipped with the ability to perform onsite registration and perform much better than their X series predecessors. The recent S series firmware release and SCENE 2019 has also shown massive field capture, field color capture and scan processing time improvements. In many cases clients are seeing around 50% time savings with the same scanner they bought a few months ago. Reach out to Chris Palmer or Kris Atkinson at FARO UK for more info. If you need help reaching them just let me know
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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by Felix_the_Cat »

Ditch the recap. It’s only useful for making rcp files. It makes horrendous registrations and decimates your scans whether you want it to or not.

ZF is sweet but the software is weird and proprietary and the scanner is very very expensive. It is not in the same league I think.

Leica makes fine hardware but once you own one you will die a death by a thousand little cuts trying to get the data into a useable form and then getting it to your customers. Everything co$t$ and the data is heavy (RTC makes stupefyingly ginormous files) so there is the associated overhead with that as well. Every time I use Cyclone I time warp back to Y2K and they are pulling the same crap about withholding a reasonable users manual for Register360 like they always do so I won’t be getting to much more entwined in that mess either. I can’t afford it to be honest. And we have pretty deep pockets.

Faro has its flaws but they provide what amounts to a turnkey solution out of the box when you purchase a scanner and a copy of Scene. Well, and a few inexpensive (like $3k) plugins, but that goes with the territory. And nothing else matters if you can’t get it off your hard drive and into the customer’s hands. Get a demo. Make the bastards work for their money. Get OUTPUT.

See who steps up. I’m just another idiot with an opinion of course, ymmv.




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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by Scott »

Felix_the_Cat wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 9:12 pm Ditch the recap. It’s only useful for making rcp files. It makes horrendous registrations and decimates your scans whether you want it to or not.

ZF is sweet but the software is weird and proprietary and the scanner is very very expensive. It is not in the same league I think.

Leica makes fine hardware but once you own one you will die a death by a thousand little cuts trying to get the data into a useable form and then getting it to your customers. Everything co$t$ and the data is heavy (RTC makes stupefyingly ginormous files) so there is the associated overhead with that as well. Every time I use Cyclone I time warp back to Y2K and they are pulling the same crap about withholding a reasonable users manual for Register360 like they always do so I won’t be getting to much more entwined in that mess either. I can’t afford it to be honest. And we have pretty deep pockets.

Faro has its flaws but they provide what amounts to a turnkey solution out of the box when you purchase a scanner and a copy of Scene. Well, and a few inexpensive (like $3k) plugins, but that goes with the territory. And nothing else matters if you can’t get it off your hard drive and into the customer’s hands. Get a demo. Make the bastards work for their money. Get OUTPUT.

See who steps up. I’m just another idiot with an opinion of course, ymmv.

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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by MajorDomo »

I have been using mostly Leica for the last few years, C10, P20,P30, P40, P50. The P30 would be the better choice of all those, as the range is more than sufficient for interiors. P50, is way over the top for your needs. All the P series are bulky and heavy, a massive pain in small spaces, not worth the hassle. Leica involves being forcefully tied to Cyclone, i don't like that situation, but can live with it.

RTC is quick, the VIS registration is a nice feature. But the offset cameras are a fatal flaw, all the cameras are offset, so it suffers from compounding parallax; this kills that scanner dead in the water for me.

Faro s150 seems to be the direct competitor of the RTC, haven't used much, really liked the in-plane camera, it takes longer than the RTC for the colour pass, but all the photos are actually aligned. You can also use C2C on the fly.

Z+F 5016, is pricier than all the others, comes with a longer range whether you want it or not, you still get the C2C registration and an IMU (I personally prefer the IMU based systems for real-time tracking, visual systems as the RTC require light, something i don't always have.)

Personally, I'd stick with what I know, in your case the Faro ecosystem. Never underestimate how much it costs to switch to a different software, money, and timewise.
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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by bobbyf90 »

Thanks for everyone's input it's looking like Faro S series is the way to go for us but final decisions are based on demonstration from all.

Does anyone have any experience of the onsite registration? Does it work without targets and what if I'm scanning in a basement plant room with no GPS and tons of magnetic fields? Thanks.
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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by gsisman »

bobbyf90 wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:49 am Thanks for everyone's input it's looking like Faro S series is the way to go for us but final decisions are based on demonstration from all.

Does anyone have any experience of the onsite registration? Does it work without targets and what if I'm scanning in a basement plant room with no GPS and tons of magnetic fields? Thanks.
Thus the case probably for an RTC visual based system. I was pretty amazed at the RTC when we rented it for a month back in November, had a few glitches mainly when turning the scanner 90 degrees sideways to get some custom scans, and walking too long between scan areas in a building-up and down half circular stair cases to get to another area.
We should compare it to another equivalent FARO rental unit. Maybe the next one we do. Our forensic Police unit uses one and I've tried hooking up with them for the past year.
Right now we fill in the small stuff and interior parking garage rooms with the BLK360 and a rental P20
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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by TommyMaddox »

bobbyf90 wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:49 am Thanks for everyone's input it's looking like Faro S series is the way to go for us but final decisions are based on demonstration from all.

Does anyone have any experience of the onsite registration? Does it work without targets and what if I'm scanning in a basement plant room with no GPS and tons of magnetic fields? Thanks.
The On-Site Registration tools give you access to all of the same processing and registration tools and techniques that you would normally find in SCENE. I use OSR targetless 99% of the time, but it can be used with checkerboards, spheres, planes etc... Just like you would do in SCENE. My experiences on many projects usually lead me to recommend using our "top-view + c2c" method as it is quick, simple, and requires no targets.

GPS is only considered as an auxiliary sensor reading for target registration anyways, so if you are indoors you may get enough of a reading in one scan to locate the project on the map, but it wouldn't be useful for registration. OSR will be just fine without GPS, especially while using "top view + c2c" method indoors.

If there are very strong magnetic fields present (I run into this at refineries sometimes) then the internal compass may give you an error, but that is not required for OSR to be successful or for the scanner to operate.

I imagine most people would be hard pressed to find another application that is more perfectly suited to a FARO S series than tight plant/mechanical rooms. I think you will be quite impressed with the realistic color photography, Laser HDR, and the streamlined process from job start to end deliverable. After all the deliverable is the only thing that really matters at the end of the day anyways.
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Re: Buying a scanner for indoor construction sites

Post by JFlammVDC »

At my previous employer, we had a P50. That thing was the bane of my existence. It produced a fine scan, yes, but dragging that coffin around that it came in and trying to use that monstrosity in tight places or places that required going up and down ladders, no thanks. I wasn't privy to the processing side of it so I can't give you a take on Cyclone.
Fast forward to the present day. I use a FARO 350S almost daily for my current company. Whether I'm scanning post-tension decks pre-pour, hospital floors for FF-FL, or scanning a gutted out building, this thing rocks. First and foremost it's small and easy to pack around a construction site. It's like carrying a briefcase and not dragging a coffin around on its back two wheels. I can rope it up and down a ladder and not need a chain hoist or call for the tower crane to make a lift for me. The tripod is carbon fiber and telescopes into a bag that I can put on my back and not have to carry a full size tripod. We also have two boxes of the spheres and their accessories which I utilize, along with checkerboards, always in an indoor setting. Registration seems to go better and faster for me as I'm working down hallways and diving into rooms in the hospital we are currently building. To me, the FARO is way more user friendly. In my experience, the only thing easier to use is the BLK360 - iPad w/ ReCap Pro. IMO, they have their limitations though.
I've yet to try the on-site registration for a wet pour but I'm sure we will in the future. With the amazing training and customer support that FARO gives (Steven and Duane w/FARO and Nate w/Rithm), I've gotten pretty slick with Scene and the Rithm bolt on app. I will sing its praises all day.
Funny thing is, we have Leica everything else. And had the RTC come out about 1-2 months earlier, it would be it that I'd be talking about.
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