At SPAR 3D Expo 2016 on Monday, GeoSLAM and Surphaser announced a partnership, and their first co-venture: the SurphSLAM mapping system. GeoSLAM explains that the product was designed to fill a need for “a high-precision real-time mobile mapping system that can operate both indoors and outdoors.”
The SurphSLAM is a trolley-based mobile mapping system that integrates the new Surphaser Model 10 LiDAR with a low-grade IMU, a computer running real-time registration software, and a tablet for display.
During a product presentation on Monday, a GeoSLAM representative said that “the advantage of the Model 10, from the mobile mapping perspective is its small form size, which makes it great for a versatile mapping system such as SurphSLAM.”
As part of the announcement, GeoSLAM also announced their first real-time SLAM registration software, GeoSLAM RealTime. Simply put, the software locates the mapping system within its environment in real time as scanning progresses. “What that means,” GeoSLAM explained, “is that we can do the accurate scanning you would normally do with the Model 10, but on the move, and without the need for control or GPS.”
It also means that the system is able to perform real-time registration of the captured point clouds, which are then displayed on the tablet as work progresses. The final result is a high-precision mapping system that allows for faster capture in the field than static scanning systems.
GeoSLAM explained that this system represents the first time they have performed real-time SLAM with a high-precision scanner. No details were released on availability.
