The Dirt

LiDAR and Government Agencies

Recently, I visited some customers and partners working for or with a federal agency who were curious to know about LiDAR technology and its compatibility with Autodesk products.  The work being done is sensitive so I am purposefully not naming names.

At present, there are several products that I am keeping a close eye on specific to this request: Civil 3D, MAP, Revit, and NavisWorks. Each of these Autodesk applications has capability with LiDAR datasets.

Civil 3D can, of course, create terrain models from points. As with any CAD- and/or TIN-based application, the number of points that can be used is limited. The area that most software developers are working on to address this issue is point weeding or thinning. The Civil 3D add-on product that I am currently looking at is CloudCube from VirtualGEO. I have also been impressed with the products from Kubit.

Based on a suggestion from a colleague at Autodesk University, I am also exploring using MAP and its query functionality to weed LiDAR points. Watch for posts on this as my research continues.

Revit shows real promise in working with large LiDAR point clouds specific to terrain modeling. The speed with which it can create surfaces continues to impress me.

NavisWorks is my next project. This technology was recently purchased by Autodesk. To my good fortune, the company is located here in Arizona. I've got training booked for early March. I will, of course, post about this experience as well.

The agency is keen on this technology from a cartographic point of view. It stands to reason that the government has a requirement for accurate 3D models. LiDAR is an obvious technology for them to investigate and ultimately employ.

Return to Easter Island

I'm heading back to the island today.  It's hard to believe that the project started almost one year ago.

Guillermo Melantoni and I will be continuing the Civil 3D, MAP and Revit training that we started back in October 2007.  We'll also have a film crew with us.

My friend Singa looking for artifacts on the island.  Cool shirt Singa!

Keep your eyes on The Dirt and the project website:  www.autodesk.com/easterisland for updates. 

If you are an Autodesk partner you may know that the Easter Island project will be featured at the One Team Conference in March.

New Bridge in China Breaks Three World Records

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China's Sutong Bridge has set a new world's record for the longest cable-stayed span . . .

From ENR.com:  "Sporting the world's longest cable-stayed span, largest piled foundations, second-tallest towers and longest cable, the Sutong Bridge in China's Jiangsu Province will also serve the more mundane purpose of cutting off almost an hour off the crossing of the Yangtze River between the cities of Nantong and Suzhou–currently done only by ferry." 

See the complete story, photos and video.

Laser Scanning in Phoenix

Scanning 1000 year old Hohokam petroglyphs - note the Phoenix skyline in the background

On December 28 my friend Scott Cedarleaf with Plowman Craven Associates asked me to meet him and representatives from the Gila River Indian Community, the City of Phoenix, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona at South Mountain Park.  The purpose of the field trip was to demonstrate the combination of 3D laser scanning and Autodesk software.

Similar to my work on Easter Island this trip had an archaeological focus.  The attendees were all very curious to see how laser scanning and the resulting 3D models could help them in their work and research.

As expected once the group got to see the point clouds generated by the scanner the conversations about how the technology could be applied heated up.

If you too are curious about how to work with laser scanning data and Civil 3D check out CloudCUBE from VirtualGEO.

If you are really serious about laser scanning I recommend that you attend the SPAR conference in Houston.  I'll see you there!

Adding Civil 3D Extensions to a Pulldown Menu

Jerry Bartels, Autodesk AE, has provided us with a useful tip for adding the Civil 3D extensions to a pulldown menu.

Jerry also shares with us a tool for creating several tool palettes to access much of the MVBLOCK content that ships with Civil 3D.

The CUI and the tool palettes may be found in the following ZIP file. The following AVI shows how to configure both the extension menu and the tool palettes.

Download civil_3d_stuff.zip

Download civil_3d_stuff.avi

Note:  Use of the menu assumes the extensions have been previously installed in the default locations.

Thanks Jerry!