New products maximize options and reduce costs of High-Definition Surveys TM (3D laser scanning)
San Ramon, CA, July 2, 2004 – Leica Geosystems HDS, Inc. announced that it has begun shipments of three new products:
• The ultra high-speed HDS4500 laser scanner for plant and industrial applications
• CycloneTM 5.1, powerful, specialized engineering software for high-performance processing, registration, managing and information extraction from large laser scan databases
• CloudWorxTM 3.0, software for processing and using laser scan data directly within CAD desktop software
These products are poised to cut both field time and office costs for High-Definition Survey projects (also known as 3D laser scanning or HDS®) in civil, architectural, and plant applications. Together these products maximize choice for professionals, while also increasing the efficiency of High-Definition Surveys that involve very large point cloud data sets.
Ultra High-Speed Scanner with Popular Cyclone User Interface
Since Leica first announced in 2003 its intent to market an ultra high-speed, phase-based laser scanner (HDS4500) with Leica’s Cyclone software, the market has been eagerly awaiting the formal release of the combined system. Cyclone is the industry’s most popular laser scanning software and ultra high-speed (e.g. >100,000 points/sec) scanning has generated significant market interest. Leica has now qualified the ultra high-speed HDS4500 scanner to its stringent standards and completed development of Cyclone 5.1 software to operate the HDS4500 and process its often-large data sets. With the HDS4500’s large field-of-view (max 360°x310°) and high point density capabilities, data sets of 100 million points or more are increasingly common. In addition to operating an HDS4500, Cyclone 5.1 can also be used to operate HDS3000 and HDS2500 (or Cyrax® 2500) laser scanners, known for their versatility and high accuracy at long range.
Existing Cyclone Users Can Now Upgrade to Cyclone 5.1
Leica Geosystems’ existing customers with Cyclone 4.1 and Cyrax 2500 scanners can now upgrade to take advantage of the office productivity advances in Cyclone 5.1. These advances include:
• Managing large point cloud data sets efficiently (minimum ten-fold increase over Cyclone 4.1)
• Faster navigation to specific areas of interest
• Easy selection of specific areas of interest within all available scan data
• Faster (near real-time) processing for selecting specific point cloud areas and creating objects from the selected point cloud data
Cyclone 5.1 supports the full line of Leica’s HDS scanner family; Cyclone 5.0, released in March of this year, had supported only Leica’s new HDS3000 scanner.
CloudWorx 3.0 Release
Just as Cyclone 5.1 enables users to work efficiently with very large point cloud data sets in specialty Cyclone software, CloudWorx 3.0 allows users to work efficiently with very large data sets directly within their familiar CAD desktop environments using familiar CAD tools and commands. Users have a reduced learning curve and can utilize their CAD application’s rich tool set. Unlike other CAD-compatible point cloud software, CloudWorx 3.0 does not require users to first convert the scan data into an intermediate model. Another benefit of enabling users to work directly with point cloud data is that the users can take advantage of the higher accuracy of the raw data. Finally, CloudWorx 3.0 will also enable users to quickly locate specific areas of interest via spatial indexing and the use of multiple “limit boxes” to temporarily hide unwanted data. The prior version of CloudWorx (2.1) allowed the use of only a single limit box.
Customer Reaction
Keith Medley, General Manager, Hi-CAD America (www.hi-cad.com), said, “The availability of a complete family of systems and software solutions is precisely what this industry needs. As surveyors and service providers engage in the many aspects of laser scanning to deliver improved processes, better design, shorter project schedules, and reduced costs to their contractor and owner operator clients, having a single, world-class source, such as Leica’s family of HDS 3D laser scanning and modeling solutions, is a great advantage.”
Full Product Family Now Shipping
“With this round of product releases and shipments, we have now finalized the full HDS family of product initiatives that we had announced at the Intergeo conference. We are already receiving very positive feedback from our first HDS3000 and Cyclone 5.0 users. With the HDS4500, Cyclone 5.1 and CloudWorx 3.0 releases, the HDS product family release is complete. This family of products provides many outstanding options for new and current users and strengthens Leica’s leading position in the market,” states Erwin Frei, CEO.
For further information contact:
Tel (direct) 1-925-790-2317
Tel (central) 1-925-790-2300
Fax 1-925-790-2309
E-mail geoffrey.jacobs@hds.leica-geosystems.com
