McKim & Creed Deploy TITAN® for Mobile LiDAR Scanning of Five Major Sections of North Carolina DOT Highways
Houston, Texas, Tuesday, April, 28, 2009 – Ambercore, the 4D Company, is pleased to announce that McKim & Creed has successfully deployed the TITAN® Mobile Laser Scanning system for five major sections of North Carolina DOT highways.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation needed to quickly and safely survey five sections of busy interstate highways. These sections of highway have high traffic volume as well as large complex intersections. Traditional survey techniques for these projects would have involved traffic interruptions and exposed the survey crews to high risk as they worked for extended periods adjacent to the fast moving traffic. The interchanges in the five project sections also had high flyovers and other difficult to reach features which added to the challenge of the surveys.
McKim & Creed, a leading regional survey and engineering firm in North Carolina, was able to provide the DOT with a solution that completed the surveys in a short period of time and eliminated crew risk.
In the summer of 2008, McKim & Creed and the North Carolina DOT asked
Terrapoint to use the TITAN® mobile laser scanning system to collect a test
section of interstate highway near Raleigh, North Carolina. McKim & Creed
and the North Carolina DOT had previously completed a survey on this test
section and had a wealth of comparison data available. The comparisons of
the TITAN® mobile laser scan to their traditional results demonstrated that
the TITAN® acquired data met or exceeded the requirements of the survey and
engineering specifications.
As a result of this positive evaluation both McKim & Creed and North Carolina DOT were confident the TITAN® mobile scanning solution would be effective and efficient for this major initiative.
The five projects around the state were completed within 9 days, whereas traditional static scanning would have taken 50+ days. The point cloud data from each project is currently in primary processing and will be delivered to McKim & Creed. They will then process the data into the desired set of drawing deliverables for the DOT. These drawing products are then used to design improvements to the highways.
The TITAN® mobile laser scanning system was developed specifically for complex highway surveys. The system enables the collection of survey grade data while driving at highway speed. This is all done with the crew safely inside the truck.
McKim & Creed have been carefully evaluating new survey technologies as they become available to determine which is appropriate to offer to their clients. Tim Van Gelder, the Geomatics Regional Manager for McKim and Creed said, “We have worked with NCDOT for over 16 years providing a variety of design survey solutions. Obtaining accurate pavement DTM’s in high traffic areas has always been a challenge. Safety aspects, speed of obtaining the data and the cost effectiveness were enough reasons for us to evaluate the TITAN® system as an alternate method. After analyzing the results and providing NCDOT with accuracy details on our pilot project we now realize that this is THE method of providing pavement DTM’s in high traffic areas. NCDOT was so impressed that they awarded us a sixth project covering 33 miles of a railroad corridor. Terrapoint people have been exceptionally good to work with and know their product and capabilities extremely well.”
About McKim & Creed
Established in 1978, McKim & Creed provides engineering, surveying, and planning services from offices throughout the southeastern United States. Its clients include local, state and federal government entities; developers; utility companies; universities; health care institutions; and other industries. McKim & Creed is a community of 300+ people helping people make life just a little better. For more than 30 years, we have helped our clients provide clean water, create safe communities and build and maintain sustainable infrastructure. McKim & Creed’s award-winning professionals work with public and private sector clients to provide innovative, effective solutions to a variety of infrastructure challenges.
About North Carolina Department of Transportation
The N.C. Department of Transportation is one of North Carolina’s largest state government agencies, with more than 14,000 employees. NC DOT works hard to provide high-quality transportation for travelers throughout North Carolina, including highways, rail, aviation, ferries, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and public transit.
About Ambercore
Ambercore is the 4D Company. We make innovative mobile LiDAR technology, we provide LiDAR data collection services, and integrate and extract knowledge from 4D data. TITAN® is a revolutionary technology that produces high accuracy survey and mapping products for corridor and infrastructure projects across a number of vertical markets. Travelling at highway speeds – or on rail or vessel – the system uses state-of-the-art LiDAR, imaging and positioning technology to provide feature rich 3-dimensional data, from which intelligent information is extracted and delivered to clients. TITAN® has been deployed on projects throughout the world since 2003.
Ambercore’s Terrapoint Division has provided LiDAR and other digital mapping services for a diverse clientele in over forty countries for the past twenty years. Terrapoint’s primary focus is to find solutions that fit client needs, and to continue a reputation for meeting and exceeding client demands in the delivery of digital elevation and image data. Service and product offerings include complete airborne LiDAR, and digital imaging for engineering, survey and mapping applications. Terrapoint is considered a leader in aerial LiDAR services, and owns one of the largest fleets of sensors in the world.
Ambercore’s 4D-iQ provides enterprise-scale software and service solutions for Energy, Mining and natural resource sectors. With its powerful spatial modeling and simulation software, 4D-iQ helps clients make important business decisions by collecting, integrating and analyzing spatial information in 2D, 3D and in 4D (over time). Best of breed solutions comprised of software, hardware and services have been deployed internationally with tier-one clients. Ambercore is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada with offices in Houston, Calgary, South Africa and Europe.
Ambercore, Terrapoint, TITAN, and 4D-iQ are registered trademarks or trademarks of Ambercore Software Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates, in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Ambercore reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.
Press Information:
Samantha Mabey, Ambercore
Tel.: 613-820-4545
E-mail (press only): press@ambercore.com
General Information: contact.us@ambercore.com
Please visit our website at www.ambercore.com
