Geo Week News

April 13, 2016

Hands on with Scanning and Software Solutions

SPAR 3D Day in the Field
Photo courtesy of Matt Craig.

Monday, SPAR 3D hosted a 3D field trip to the Eaton’s Houston Experience Center, sponsored by LFM. Users were able to try out laser scanning and 3D imaging systems from Trimble, Leica, Z+F, Riegl, Faro, Surphaser, NCTech, and DotProduct in the center’s mock petrochemical refinery and power substation.

Wayne Rodieck of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation attended and reported back.

Disclaimer: Rodieck’s comments reflect his own opinions and not the opinions of Anadarko.

SPAR 3D: What happened at the demonstration?

Wayne Rodieck: Participants were afforded the opportunity to interact with data collection experts and manufacturers to observe their new offerings and methods for the collection and processing of point cloud data. LFM demonstrated their suite of software products which allows clients to create a “Trusted Living PointCloud”. LFM’s product not only provides a “mashup” of disparate point cloud datasets from all the hardware manufacturers but also provides customers a system to manage the data from inception (collection) to archival. The part that I found especially enlightening and exciting is LFM’s web environment.

SPAR 3D: Is this kind of demonstration valuable?

Wayne Rodieck: It was particularly valuable in seeing first hand an end to end solution and how easily all of the parts can come together to create a sustainable final user experience.

SPAR 3D: How was it received? Should the industry be doing more of this?

Wayne Rodieck: From what I observed, all participants were engaged and inquisitive. Knowledge sharing is at the heart of these events and hands on demonstrations provide a more robust experience for the participants.

SPAR 3D: Do you think the asset owners, or other potential customer of 3D information, learned something from this demonstration? If so, what?

Wayne Rodieck: What was especially enlightening and exciting for me was LFM’s cloud environment. The final customer experience and actual utilization of the data is the end game for us and I was pleasantly surprised to see more attention being placed on the end user experience rather than the method of collecting the data. Fit for purpose is something we must all keep in mind.

As an experienced user of 3D, did you take any lessons away from this?

Wayne Rodieck: As a spatial data manager, my job is to insure that my team has rendered the collected data useful and accessible for all decision makers at our company and beyond. From Landmen to Engineers; from Operations to the Boardroom and from Regulatory agencies to Emergency responders, the data must be constructed and managed in a manner that not only allows but encourages this diverse consumer group to engage in a compelling and productive conversation with the data. And it’s through this pervasive and ubiquitous conversation that insights and revelations are obtained and better decisions are made. Here is where the value opportunity lies in wait. Data collectors, software developers and engineers seem to be coming around to this end user centric mentality of “how we bring the data to the masses”…  and it’s very exciting to have the opportunity to play a role in the revolution!

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