Tripod-based Systems

Prototype One (USU owned)

Based on Riegl Lidar and Mikrotron CMOS camera
Lidar is mounted on a two-axis motion platform
Lidar and the camera are looking at the same location all the time
For each Lidar shot, a 20x20 patch of pixels is captured and centered around the Lidar shot at the same instant in time
Maximum range is on the order of 400 to 800 meters
About 800 Lidar shots per second - relatively slow
Lidar data captured to portable PC over serial link
ElectroOptical (EO), or digital image, data captured to portable PC over CameraLink interface
Wireframe and associated texture information combined in post process to produce true 3D textured model

* Used extensively by RappidMapper for preliminary business development.

Based on Riegl Z210i Lidar and ISG CMOS camera
Lidar rotates in azimuth while elevation scanning is performed with a mirror that rotates 20 times a second
Lidar and camera are looking at the same location at the same time
Lidar vertical scans occur 20 times per second
A 2048 high by 16 wide slice of CMOS image is captured 60 times per second
Lidar scans and EO slices are time tagged as captured
Post processing aligns the time tagged data for temporal correlation
About 20,000 Lidar shots per second - much faster
Lidar data captured to laptop PC over Ethernet
EO data captured to laptop PC over IEEE1394 (Firewire) interface
Wireframe and associated texture information combined in post process to produce true 3D textured model

*Used exclusively by RappidMapper in business development and service model

Based on Riegl Z420i Lidar and ISG CMOS camera
Very similar to Prototype II except that beam divergence is less, gives better spatial resolution
A modified Lidar supplies a sync signal which is used to temporally correlate the capture of CMOS image slices
Lidar and texture data are now temporally correlated by default

*Was delivered to RappidMapper in January 2006; they expect to order 10 or 12 more over the next year.

*A company in SLC is partnering to design and build integrated Texel cameras for the commercial market based on the CAIL licensed technology.