Nashville, TN – GeoCue Group Inc. unveiled its new True View™ line of drone sensors at an invitation only industry event on June 25th in Nashville, Tennessee. True View sensors offer surveyors an innovative lidar + dual oblique mapping camera configuration integrated in a single lightweight payload for use on commercial drone platforms. True View allows for fast, easy automated generation of true 3D colorized point clouds, oblique imagery and orthophotos from a single flight.
In addition to a complete system presentation and software demonstrations by GeoCue, guest speakers included:
- Lori Eversull of Vulcan Material Corporation, presenting an engaging discussion of how drone sensor technology is used in Vulcan’s mining operations.
- Srdjan Sobol, Development Manager for Applanix (a Trimble company), presented the three Applanix/Trimble positioning solutions offered by True View’s local or cloud-based positional post-processing workflows.
- Andreas Ploier, CEO of Drone Rescue Systems, discussed the new partnership with GeoCue and the value of a rescue parachute when operating in environments with persons as well as protecting high value payloads.
- My-Linh Truong, UAS segment manager for Riegl, who discussed the new Riegl partnership with GeoCue and the characteristics of the upcoming True View 610’s Riegl miniVUX sensor.
- Tyler Crawford of MFE Insurance Brokerage who provided an overview of insuring drones and drone sensors.
Press coverage was provided by Mr. Allen Cheves and Dr. Stewart Walker of LIDAR Magazine.
The first sensor of the product line, the True View 410, was displayed at the reveal along with full workflow processing in the companion True View Evo processing software. The True View 410 is the industry’s first integrated LIDAR/camera fusion platform designed from the ground up to generate high accuracy 3D colorized LIDAR point clouds. Featuring dual GeoCue Mapping Cameras, a Quanergy M8 Ultra laser scanner and Applanix Position and Orientation System (POS), the result is a true 3D imaging sensor. With its wide 120° fused field of view, the True View 410 provides high efficiency 3D color mapping with vegetation penetration in a payload package with a mass of about 2 kg.
Demonstrations of True View Evo full post-processing workflow software (included with the sensor) were provided. The audience witnessed the creation of stunning 3D colorized point clouds with processing time from sensor to final product of less than 15 minutes for a 50-acre site. The visualization of colorized vertical surfaces demonstrated the value of the dual oblique cameras and true 3D mapping of LIDAR points to images.
“Anyone considering a drone LIDAR system should pause and evaluate the True View product line,” said Lewis Graham, President and CTO of GeoCue. “The True View sensor fusion systems will make 3D colorized point clouds a standard product demanded by customers of high accuracy drone mapping. The 3D colorization approach that we use in our Evo software provides a new level of intelligence in LIDAR point clouds. An advance in sensor technology comes along every few years that changes our industry – True View is one of those instances.”
In addition to its advanced fusion technology, the True View 410 includes a revolutionary business model option. Customers can purchase the complete system (hardware and full workflow software) as a standard purchase or enroll in a subscription service. For as little as $3,000 per month, a user can obtain an Evergreen True View 410 with complete processing software. The minimum time commitment for an Evergreen subscription is 3 months. The base subscription includes enough processing minutes to complete about 20 projects of 50 acres each. Additional processing is purchased by the minute. Both traditional purchase and Evergreen customers can access Applanix SmartBase and Trimble PP-RTX on a per-minute basis (via True View Evo) without the need to commit to an annual Trimble service subscription; all billing is managed by GeoCue.
The True View 410 beta program begins in July with customer shipments to follow. Contact GeoCue at 1-256-461-8289 or info@geocue.com for detailed system information.
About GeoCue
GeoCue Group was founded in 2003 by a group of engineers with extensive experience in developing hardware and software solutions for primary remote-sensed data acquisition. Our initial products were aimed at reducing schedule and cost risk in geospatial production workflows by providing organizational, productivity and data management tools for base geospatial data production. These tools have been realized as the GeoCue product family. Today GeoCue workflow management tools are used by a majority of North American geospatial production shops. In 2005, GeoCue began selling and supporting Terrasolid tools for kinematic LIDAR data production. This was followed in 2009 by our acquisition of QCoherent Software LLC, the creator of the point cloud exploitation toolset, LP360. Today GeoCue is the largest supplier of kinematic LIDAR processing tools in North America and LP360 is the world’s most widely used tool for exploiting point cloud data. In 2014, GeoCue Group started a division focused on using small Unmanned Aerial Systems for high accuracy mapping. Leveraging our expertise in production, risk reduction, and point cloud processing tools, we are continuing to bring new services and products to market to provide surveyors and other geomatics professionals exciting tools for geospatial data extraction using low cost drones including Loki, our plug-and-play PPK direct positioning system, and now our new True View LIDAR/Imagery fusion sensors. To learn more, visit www.geocue.com.
