One of the topics that drew the most interest at the recently completed SPAR Europe conference, held at the RAI Conference Center in Amsterdam, was that of mobile scanning and mapping. What kind of accuracy can you expect? How fast can you drive? What’s the business case for collecting so much data?

In fact, keynote speaker Erik Siemer, general manager of M3DM, sparked discussion right off the bat with his presentation, which focused on the radical way mobile scanning can change the traditional surveying model. Now, he said, “we can do the same work that we used to do,” meaning traditional transportation-based survey work, “but there’s no work on the road. Even the control points were banned.” There’s no longer a reason to get out of the car at all.

Showing some of the results of M3DM’s scanning, Siemer noted, “you can even see the grooves in the asphalt.”

 …