COLORADO ––  Merrick & Company won first place in the civil/survey category of the “High Definition Surveying (HDS) Plan” contest, hosted by Leica Geosystems.  The annual event is part of Hexagon 2012. The awards program allows Leica HDS/laser scanning users to submit posters with laser scanning deliverables in one of three categories, including buildings/heritage, civil/survey and plant/marine. Winners were judged on completeness of plan, creative use of point cloud, creative use of model and overall appearance.

Merrick’s submittal represents a detailed image of a power substation facility.  They utilized HD laser sensors to provide an as-built surveying and mapping product.  The composite geo-referenced point cloud was collected with 18 scanworlds; each position rated at four million pixel resolution covering the 20 acre project site.  The cloud dataset was digitized with conventional feature lines and points, then exported to a CAD platform to create the final three-dimensional mapping product.

Whether topographic surveying is done with a tape or chain, a total station or GPS, the focus is on the collection of individual, significant points.  In a day’s work, hundreds or even thousands of points are collected by these types of measurement devices.  Safety is a priority at Merrick and big part of the culture.  Any technology that enhances safety by reducing a potential hazard of having a surveyor at the data point is a worthy consideration.  Since HDS does not require a surveyor’s presence at a data point, the operation is non-invasive in nature, thereby offering tremendous safety advantages.