Lewis Graham has written 65 articles

The Accuracy Triangle – The Photogrammetric Triad

We get a lot of questions regarding accuracy in drone mapping projects.  These questions range from ground control layout suggestions to the necessity of calibration cameras.  Sometimes it is useful to step back a bit and take a wholistic view of the elements that impact photogrammetric accuracy.   The information in this article is meant…

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Automatic Ground Classification of Dense Point Clouds in LP360

The density of point clouds (usually expressed as points per square meter) is increasing on what seems to be a monthly basis.  This is particularly true of point clouds derived from Dense Image Matching (DIM), the clouds produced from software such as PhotoScan, Pix4D, DroneDeploy and so forth. You can quickly check the density of…

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An Introduction to ASPSuite

We are releasing a significant update to the AirGon Sensor Package Software Suite (ASPSuite or just ASP) with the release of our new direct geopositioning system (DGPS), Loki.  ASPSuite is the intermediate step between landing the drone and feeding data to the Structure from Motion (SfM) software (PhotoScan, Pix4D, DroneDeploy and etc.). ASPSuite is available…

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Monochromatic/Hillshade Displays in LP360

We have added a new monochromatic display mode in LP360 as well as rearranged the hillshade options to a more logical arrangement. A monochromatic display is just what it implies – a solid, single color display of all points regardless of attributes such as class or return number.  This mode of display is ideal for…

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An Introduction to LAS File Analyst

In 2016 we added a very powerful new tool to LP360 (standalone version) called Feature Analyst.  This is a tabular-driven tool that synchronizes a table view of Features, Feature Parts and Vertices with their graphical representation in the Map and Profile views.  This tool has improved the creation, editing and quality checking of features such…

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AirGon Sensor Package Software Suite, Redux

The AirGon Sensor Package (ASP) software suite is part of the AirGon software workflow and is used to process Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) information from the AV-900 ASP hardware for Post-Processed Kinematic (PPK) direct geopositioning (wow, that is truly a mouthful!!). Last year we introduced the Bring Your Own Drone (BYOD) Mapping Kit to…

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A Comparison of Volumetric Workflows – LP360, PhotoScan and Pix4D

In the last quarter of 2016, we introduced (under our AirGon brand) the Bring Your Own Drone (BYOD) Mapping Kit.  This kit contains all the software one needs to turn a low-cost drone such as a Phantom 4 Pro or an Inspire 2 with x4s camera into a serious mapping platform. Our presales technical team…

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Rail Extraction Tools in LP360

LP360 includes tools to automatically extract a rail alignment (centerline) feature as a polyline as well as classify “top of rail” from LAS files derived from Laser Intensity Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) points.  This feature is implemented as a semi-automated Point Cloud Task (PCT) and is available in the Advanced version of both LP360 for…

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A Framework for Control Strategies

We do a significant amount of Research and Development (R&D) in drone mapping.  Our AV-900 rotary wing system has an L1/L2 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) that we run in the Post-Processed Kinematic mode.  This gives us the location of the AV-900 Survey System antenna to within a few centimeters relative to a local base…

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Thinning Feature Vertices in LP360

We have lot of LP360 customers with a variety of disparate feature collection and editing needs.  To begin to address these needs, we introduced a completely new set of Feature Edit tools in the 2016/2017 releases of LP360 (standalone).  Last month I introduced the new Feature Analyst tool that will be available in LP360 2017.1…

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