NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

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dhirota
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by dhirota »

smacl wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 7:01 pm Great work Dennis, the VLX looks like a very capable device for topographic work, albeit you'd probably want to tie into existing control. I'd be interested to hear why you don't much like the Velodyne sensor. My own limited experience, based on mobile mapping devices, is that intensity returns aren't great which can be a big problem for certain types of processing. I've also seen quite noisy data from SLAM solutions using Velodyne but I'm not convinced the Velodyne is necessarily the source of the problem. I'd be interested in seeing an image from the VLX colored by intensity in an area where you'd expect sharp distinct changes in intensity. Thanks again for all the info so far, really interesting stuff!
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I cannot remember if the unprofessional experience at a CES show was the influence or the noisy data from other shows like SPAR or InterGeo. Many vendors are using the sensor, I would imagine because of availability and cost. As you indicate, it maybe only one of many factors that contribute to an ugly solution.

We are giving our staff practice on using the VLX for real work using targets. We placed a bunch of targets out in our parking lot to get a feel of the best height, orientation, and location to place the targets when compared to targets for our M6, Riegl VZ400i and Z+F 5010Xs.

The ability to cover large areas quickly with the targets interesting and I am sure that buildings help in the registration of the mobile scans and panorama generation.

07-07-2020 11-26-21 AM.jpg
07-07-2020 11-31-43 AM.jpg

The post-processing software removes the moving objects such as cars and people on streets and sidewalks. We will be doing more testing in urban areas with greater densities of people and cars.

Screenshot from 2020-07-07 11-40-14.jpg

We checked the targets used with the VLX and how they registered the overall scan with the test scans completed. We are still waiting for the final upgrade on the internal software of the VLX tomorrow. A preliminary check on target X, Y, Z values showed deviations of 1 to 6mm over the 200 foot X 50 foot property.

Used BLK2GO with the same Z+F Targets as the VLX , but the Hexagon software would not recognize the Z+F check targets, so I did not spend any time trying to figure it out. Unless Hexagon has improved their SLAM/display software since April, 2020 it needs significant help to bring up to the visualization quality of NavVis VLX.

4-12-2020 4-29-37 PM.jpg
4-12-2020 4-31-04 PM.jpg
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by smacl »

Thanks once again Dennis, the side by side comparison of the NavVis and BLK2GO data is very interesting. I suspect the clear superiority of the NavVis result is due in no small part to their excellent post processing routines rather than purely down to the raw sensor data. That said, the twin LIDAR units on the NavVis will also be contributing to this and places it closer to the Pegasus backpack, albeit without RTK, than the BLK2GO. It also seems to have far better cameras and the body mounting means the IMS has far fewer degrees of freedom to deal with than a handheld device.

Out of interest, do you know if the BLK2GO contains timed and coordinated information for the instrument position that could be tied back to the LAS file as this could provide scope to write a resampling and noise correcting routines to improve the quality of output. It is not strictly necessary but would certainly be useful.
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by landmeterbeuckx »

Nice comparison Dennis! The vlx data looks a lot better. Independent testing by independent people is the best way to compare instruments.
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by Daniel Wujanz »

Dear Shane,

very interesting question - we're also chasing several manufacturers of kinematic systems since we're currently working on a prototype for the homogenisation / combination of kinematic and static scans.

This is my current list of sensors / systems that allow to export trajectories and point clouds WITH timestamps:

- Leica Pegasus II (the mobile mapping solution)
- DotProduct
- GeoSLAM
- Kaarta

Two of our clients own a BLK2GO and a Navvis VLX, yet none of them was able to tell me if it is possible to export timed information. As soon as they know more, I'll post it in the forum.

Cheers

Daniel
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by GeorgSchroth »

Thanks for review and the valuable feedback Dennis! As you know we keep updating the SW which is the main driver behind our data quality. So expect further improvements to come.

This also answers maybe somehow the Velodyne questions: Sure, two scanners are better than one, since you have simply more data points (1.2 Million points per seconds considering dual returns) to speed up mapping and to get to a more complete cloud in shorter amount of time. The quality however does come indeed from our processing software as Shane indicated. We observe a point in space from many positions along the trajectory. This redundant data allows us to to infer the most likely "true" position of that point at a much higher accuracy than the scanner itself could. We spend years to develop these scene reconstruction algorithms and continue to do so. So you can consider us a software company :)

But of course we also get more "direct" data from the scanners than others do which helps as well.

Regarding the trajectory: yes the data you get from the M6 und VLX is very open. You have direct access to the computed trajectory, the poses and calibration data of the cameras, the RAW images, e.g, to adjust dynamic range and color and more.
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

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smacl wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2020 7:27 am Thanks once again Dennis, the side by side comparison of the NavVis and BLK2GO data is very interesting. I suspect the clear superiority of the NavVis result is due in no small part to their excellent post processing routines rather than purely down to the raw sensor data. That said, the twin LIDAR units on the NavVis will also be contributing to this and places it closer to the Pegasus backpack, albeit without RTK, than the BLK2GO. It also seems to have far better cameras and the body mounting means the IMS has far fewer degrees of freedom to deal with than a handheld device.

Out of interest, do you know if the BLK2GO contains timed and coordinated information for the instrument position that could be tied back to the LAS file as this could provide scope to write a resampling and noise correcting routines to improve the quality of output. It is not strictly necessary but would certainly be useful.
Shane

I had the BLK2GO to try out for about a week with no support or training directly from Leica Geosystems other than my Cyclone software account or the BLK360 that we also own. I am unable to provide any detailed information of the BLK2GO system other than the 25 scans that I processed while testing it.
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by landmeterbeuckx »

dhirota wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 7:34 am
smacl wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2020 7:27 am Thanks once again Dennis, the side by side comparison of the NavVis and BLK2GO data is very interesting. I suspect the clear superiority of the NavVis result is due in no small part to their excellent post processing routines rather than purely down to the raw sensor data. That said, the twin LIDAR units on the NavVis will also be contributing to this and places it closer to the Pegasus backpack, albeit without RTK, than the BLK2GO. It also seems to have far better cameras and the body mounting means the IMS has far fewer degrees of freedom to deal with than a handheld device.

Out of interest, do you know if the BLK2GO contains timed and coordinated information for the instrument position that could be tied back to the LAS file as this could provide scope to write a resampling and noise correcting routines to improve the quality of output. It is not strictly necessary but would certainly be useful.
Shane

I had the BLK2GO to try out for about a week with no support or training directly from Leica Geosystems other than my Cyclone software account or the BLK360 that we also own. I am unable to provide any detailed information of the BLK2GO system other than the 25 scans that I processed while testing it.
Vlx will blast away the blk2go. Maybe not with people already in the Leia environment but certainly those with other scanners already!
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by smacl »

landmeterbeuckx wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 7:54 amVlx will blast away the blk2go. Maybe not with people already in the Leia environment but certainly those with other scanners already!
Or Hexagon buy out NavVis to get their software technology for the BLK2GO form factor ;)
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by dhirota »

smacl wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 8:22 am
landmeterbeuckx wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 7:54 amVlx will blast away the blk2go. Maybe not with people already in the Leia environment but certainly those with other scanners already!
Or Hexagon buy out NavVis to get their software technology for the BLK2GO form factor ;)
I have a bunch more of BLK2GO vs VLX examples, but decided to show our first real project with the VLX. This is scanning the ILIKAI MARINA roof and aligning it with the property line. This involved three different geospatial coordinate systems for the NavVis VLX and the Z+F 5010X used to scan the roof.

1.Screenshot from 2020-07-11 08-16-03.jpg

We used approximately 35 Z+F checker targets for the Z+F5010X and 15 of those for the NavVis VLX.

2.Screenshot from 2020-07-11 08-58-08.jpg
3.Screenshot from 2020-07-11 08-59-00.jpg
4.Screenshot from 2020-07-11 08-33-14.jpg

The project captured 624 raw images, and generated 156 panorama views over 1,200 square meters.
The post-processing generated 74.5Mpts on a 5mm grid into a colored point clouds in 1h:33m, including ray tracing the images of 18.03 seconds.

5.Screenshot from 2020-07-11 08-35-13.jpg

6.Screenshot from 2020-07-11 08-40-05.jpg

7.07-11-2020 11-04-36 AM.jpg

The entire roof area was extracted in a 3D extraction by downloading the point cloud in E57 format and several smaller areas were also extracted in 3D and downloaded for future other uses.

8.07-11-2020 12-01-16 PM.jpg

10.ANCHOR-LOG-07-11-2020 01-02-48 PM.jpg
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Re: NavVis VLX - wearable mapping

Post by Jason Warren »

Looking more and more like this is going to become a standard piece of survey kit... hope NavVis have expertise in scaling up.

Maybe time to invest in [VLDR] too... ;)
HOUSTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Graf Industrial Corp. ("GRAF") (NYSE: GRAF, GRAF.U, GRAF WS), a special purpose acquisition company founded by James Graf and Michael Dee, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Velodyne Lidar, Inc. ("Velodyne" or the "Company") and its founder David Hall, pursuant to which GRAF will combine with Velodyne through a merger of a wholly-owned subsidiary of GRAF with and into Velodyne, with Velodyne surviving as a wholly-owned subsidiary of GRAF. Current Velodyne shareholders, including David Hall and strategic investors Ford, Baidu, Inc., Nikon Corporation and Hyundai Mobis, will retain an equity interest of more than 80% in the combined company. Upon the closing of the transaction, GRAF will be renamed "Velodyne Lidar, Inc." and will remain NYSE-listed under the new ticker symbol VLDR.
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