We bought a VLX3 for about $120,000 AUD which includes 3 years of maintenance. It has been quite impressive so far. The VLX is significantly faster than the Faro Focus S+ we have however it’s not 10x faster than what Navvis claims, as control networks still need to be run route planning etc. one limitation is Navvis does not provide data past 30 or 50m even if it has captured it. So for instance tall church spires etc will be cut off however for that range a terrestrial scanner is the better option anyway. For someone starting out and looking at a SLAM and tripod scanner the Z+F is impressive as it can be backpack mounted or tripod mounted and the license is perpetual, however they are quite expensive ~$200,000 AUD.
@@DavidWilson-jv9vh have you tried any of the static scanners that can double as a SLAM unit? We have a VZ600i that’s capable of this as well with an additional software upgrade and I’m interested in how it performs. I was told it’s not quite there yet but would love to look at some data.
Great video test, as usual... My vote goes to doing an analysis of some software available for vector data extraction from point clouds (from photogrammetry and/or LiDAR)... In my opinion, I believe this is the stage that's falling behind the most, automatic processes yield poor results, and I think we're still far from being able to use AI effectively... Anyway, I wasn't familiar with the N4ce software, I'll check it out!
@@gmeinero I couldn’t agree more. Extracting useable information from the data is now what’s slowing industry acceptance more than anything. N4ce is pretty amazing in what it can do, I’ll be showcasing more of its tools in the near future.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the VLX for exterior topographic surveying and specifically if it is accurate enough for ADA compliance. We had a short demo of the VLX3 and the relative accuracy of the point cloud seemed to be able to pick up 1/4" grade breaks. I have also read / heard that the vertical accuracy is often better than the horizontal accuracy due to there being less "vertical" movement while walking. But your results seem to indicate that it is actually worse vertically. I am curious if that is due to the positioning of the check points. Perhaps a checkpoint on a floor or sidewalk would check better vertically that a checkpoint on a wall would due to the orientation of the front sensor on the VLX2/VLX3?
It hasnt been my experience that verticality is better. When I asked NavVis about my results showing that the horizontal was better, they weren't surprised. But I haven't done an extensive amount of testing of check shots on horizontal surfaces so it's possible. As far as using the VLX for exterior topos, I believe that's a very common use for the VLX (most of the work I do is industrial scan to model so I dont have a ton of experience using it for this purpose). As long as it's not in big open fields or parking lots with a lack of geometry for the SLAM to work with.
Few points: 1. BLK360 Gen 2 with imagery would be a more appropriate choice for scanning smaller sites like a house relative to the RTC. 2. If you want access to jobs near critical infrastructure, public safety facilities, federal/state property, etc. you might want to rethink employing NavVis' Hesai sensors. Leica scanners are used on federal property, military installations, citical infrastructure projects, etc. No issues there. 3. Think about where you are employing something like the VLX. Is having an apparatus strapped to your body with part of it above your head a safe idea? How many pipes, doorways, overhangs, branches, valves, etc. are going to be catching and banging into you. The time you spend avoiding real world site hazards could be spend setting up a terrestrial scanner with better data capture and from safe positions. The RTC can reliable gather accurate data at 130m in all directions. 4. All suppliers have some pay to play set up. With Leica you will have license subscriptions to maintain. You will, however, own all your data--raw, registered, and exported. If you're doing larger scans or a lot of scans, you may find NavVis' token system starting to eat up your bottom line. Hexagon and Leica also have Reality Cloud Studio via HxDR, TruView, their own suite of software such as 3DR, as well as plug-ins for Autodesk products. There is room to tailor your workflow anyway you like. 5. BLK2GO is truly handheld. If unit size and weight is your primary specs, then the BLK2GO is the smallest and lightest. For targets, cloud density, and final data quality there are a few things: a. if you need more point density from a BLK2GO, simply walk slower or spend more time in an area to gather more data. b. You can also run it off the puck to initialize and re-run the SLAM in Register to improve quality. c. Typically BLK2GO users are not ones concerned with control. Architects, interior designers, realtors, construction estimators/precon, property managers, custom home builders etc. are looking for general outlay, floorplans, and site conditions with greater accuracy and detail than 360 camera walkthroughs can provide. Also, its a great, extremely mobile unit for small tree surveys or getting topographic data in brushy areas where GPS/UAS are occluded, Total Stations/terrestrial scanners require clearing and can be cumbersome. 6. You should not be spending days in Register 360. Cyclone Field in combination with VIS-enabled scanners like the BLK360 G2 and RTC360 should do the heavy lifting. They automatically position, align, and optimize the scans. You can trim unwanted data, geotag features, and mark targets in the field as you go as well. Register 360 can automatically detect targets, align scans with sufficient overlap, and auto link scans. Breaking up projects with multi-level structures can be done in separate scans and registered as sites that are easily linked together in Register with sufficient overlap.
You'd think I would have learnt by now, people always ask for it and I have to go back and add it in haha. Here it is... 1drv.ms/x/c/409a77fcc169e845/Ef88H7KtmCxOg0R5uP0ThPkBOb2EsTB2_2BMQJT2n2PBUQ?e=CuD5cY
As shown in your previous video, the RTC does very well without control. What if you reprocess the VLX and MLX data without control. Most RTC jobs do not require control but it seems like an navvis job does. That control cost has to go against the slam scanner. Also, in terms of data redundancy, if you have a corrupted setup with the RTC, you likely will be fine. If you have a corrupted walk, your getting back on the airplane and re-walking that portion of the job. Thoughts?
@@zachrider6124 very good point about the corrupt scan with NavVis. As far as how control affects SLAM scanning I’m currently running tests on that and working through the data now. I hope to have some results in the near future.
@@The3rdDimensionSurveying Did you use control points to optimize MLX trajectory during processing? Or you just compared to control points after processing?
@@The3rdDimensionSurveying viematris is a complete system, all processed by yourself with superior results. It can be mounted on a car, trolley or on foot. But it costs more. No hidden costs when purchased and no subscriptions
@ O I see. Because I don’t have one at my disposal and I haven’t spoke to Trimble about working together. I’m be more than happy to pit the X9 up against and RTC. If anyone knows someone at Trimble…
Your house is too small to be a proper test area. You would not buy a Navvis platform houses. You buy it for 200,000 sqft per day. It can do that (I have some of their scanners) but it’s a completely different game. Also hallways can completely ruin a scan in post.
Great comparison between scanners- you really give a full sense of the scanners and where they fall short/excel. Thank you for a great video!
A great comparison! Thank you.
CHC NAV RS10 would be great to compare with the ones you tested
Great videos, always enjoy watching them
Best channel for survey engineering ❤
Like the systematic approach! Thanks for the video.
Awesome overview of these products. Thanks!!
We bought a VLX3 for about $120,000 AUD which includes 3 years of maintenance. It has been quite impressive so far. The VLX is significantly faster than the Faro Focus S+ we have however it’s not 10x faster than what Navvis claims, as control networks still need to be run route planning etc. one limitation is Navvis does not provide data past 30 or 50m even if it has captured it. So for instance tall church spires etc will be cut off however for that range a terrestrial scanner is the better option anyway. For someone starting out and looking at a SLAM and tripod scanner the Z+F is impressive as it can be backpack mounted or tripod mounted and the license is perpetual, however they are quite expensive ~$200,000 AUD.
@@DavidWilson-jv9vh have you tried any of the static scanners that can double as a SLAM unit? We have a VZ600i that’s capable of this as well with an additional software upgrade and I’m interested in how it performs. I was told it’s not quite there yet but would love to look at some data.
Wow! Awsome.
Good video. Currently assessing the VLX 3 for outdoor urban topos.
very thorough, informative review.
Great work!
Great video test, as usual... My vote goes to doing an analysis of some software available for vector data extraction from point clouds (from photogrammetry and/or LiDAR)... In my opinion, I believe this is the stage that's falling behind the most, automatic processes yield poor results, and I think we're still far from being able to use AI effectively... Anyway, I wasn't familiar with the N4ce software, I'll check it out!
@@gmeinero I couldn’t agree more. Extracting useable information from the data is now what’s slowing industry acceptance more than anything.
N4ce is pretty amazing in what it can do, I’ll be showcasing more of its tools in the near future.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the VLX for exterior topographic surveying and specifically if it is accurate enough for ADA compliance. We had a short demo of the VLX3 and the relative accuracy of the point cloud seemed to be able to pick up 1/4" grade breaks. I have also read / heard that the vertical accuracy is often better than the horizontal accuracy due to there being less "vertical" movement while walking. But your results seem to indicate that it is actually worse vertically. I am curious if that is due to the positioning of the check points. Perhaps a checkpoint on a floor or sidewalk would check better vertically that a checkpoint on a wall would due to the orientation of the front sensor on the VLX2/VLX3?
It hasnt been my experience that verticality is better. When I asked NavVis about my results showing that the horizontal was better, they weren't surprised. But I haven't done an extensive amount of testing of check shots on horizontal surfaces so it's possible.
As far as using the VLX for exterior topos, I believe that's a very common use for the VLX (most of the work I do is industrial scan to model so I dont have a ton of experience using it for this purpose). As long as it's not in big open fields or parking lots with a lack of geometry for the SLAM to work with.
Few points: 1. BLK360 Gen 2 with imagery would be a more appropriate choice for scanning smaller sites like a house relative to the RTC. 2. If you want access to jobs near critical infrastructure, public safety facilities, federal/state property, etc. you might want to rethink employing NavVis' Hesai sensors. Leica scanners are used on federal property, military installations, citical infrastructure projects, etc. No issues there. 3. Think about where you are employing something like the VLX. Is having an apparatus strapped to your body with part of it above your head a safe idea? How many pipes, doorways, overhangs, branches, valves, etc. are going to be catching and banging into you. The time you spend avoiding real world site hazards could be spend setting up a terrestrial scanner with better data capture and from safe positions. The RTC can reliable gather accurate data at 130m in all directions. 4. All suppliers have some pay to play set up. With Leica you will have license subscriptions to maintain. You will, however, own all your data--raw, registered, and exported. If you're doing larger scans or a lot of scans, you may find NavVis' token system starting to eat up your bottom line. Hexagon and Leica also have Reality Cloud Studio via HxDR, TruView, their own suite of software such as 3DR, as well as plug-ins for Autodesk products. There is room to tailor your workflow anyway you like. 5. BLK2GO is truly handheld. If unit size and weight is your primary specs, then the BLK2GO is the smallest and lightest. For targets, cloud density, and final data quality there are a few things: a. if you need more point density from a BLK2GO, simply walk slower or spend more time in an area to gather more data. b. You can also run it off the puck to initialize and re-run the SLAM in Register to improve quality. c. Typically BLK2GO users are not ones concerned with control. Architects, interior designers, realtors, construction estimators/precon, property managers, custom home builders etc. are looking for general outlay, floorplans, and site conditions with greater accuracy and detail than 360 camera walkthroughs can provide. Also, its a great, extremely mobile unit for small tree surveys or getting topographic data in brushy areas where GPS/UAS are occluded, Total Stations/terrestrial scanners require clearing and can be cumbersome. 6. You should not be spending days in Register 360. Cyclone Field in combination with VIS-enabled scanners like the BLK360 G2 and RTC360 should do the heavy lifting. They automatically position, align, and optimize the scans. You can trim unwanted data, geotag features, and mark targets in the field as you go as well. Register 360 can automatically detect targets, align scans with sufficient overlap, and auto link scans. Breaking up projects with multi-level structures can be done in separate scans and registered as sites that are easily linked together in Register with sufficient overlap.
Thank for the video, I like how you go trough the analysis of the MLS. Could you please share the excel documents with the analysis ? have a good day
You'd think I would have learnt by now, people always ask for it and I have to go back and add it in haha. Here it is... 1drv.ms/x/c/409a77fcc169e845/Ef88H7KtmCxOg0R5uP0ThPkBOb2EsTB2_2BMQJT2n2PBUQ?e=CuD5cY
As shown in your previous video, the RTC does very well without control.
What if you reprocess the VLX and MLX data without control.
Most RTC jobs do not require control but it seems like an navvis job does. That control cost has to go against the slam scanner.
Also, in terms of data redundancy, if you have a corrupted setup with the RTC, you likely will be fine. If you have a corrupted walk, your getting back on the airplane and re-walking that portion of the job.
Thoughts?
@@zachrider6124 very good point about the corrupt scan with NavVis. As far as how control affects SLAM scanning I’m currently running tests on that and working through the data now. I hope to have some results in the near future.
@@The3rdDimensionSurveying Did you use control points to optimize MLX trajectory during processing? Or you just compared to control points after processing?
Would be very interesting to see control points VS no control points on NavVis. @@The3rdDimensionSurveying
@@The3rdDimensionSurveying One other thought, would you consider any SLAM based point cloud "survey grade"?
@@Donpapapedro Control was used during processing.
have you done already some comparison between NavVis and Viametris in buildings?
I've actually never heard of a Viametris until today. Looks interesting!
@@The3rdDimensionSurveying viematris is a complete system, all processed by yourself with superior results. It can be mounted on a car, trolley or on foot. But it costs more. No hidden costs when purchased and no subscriptions
Curious, why wasn't the X-series in this video?
@@JoshuaKostelyk the x-series?
@@The3rdDimensionSurveying Trimble X7 or X9
@ O I see. Because I don’t have one at my disposal and I haven’t spoke to Trimble about working together. I’m be more than happy to pit the X9 up against and RTC. If anyone knows someone at Trimble…
@@The3rdDimensionSurveying Where do you live? I work for Trimble.
@@JoshuaKostelyk I found you on LinkedIn, let’s continue the conversation there.
Your house is too small to be a proper test area. You would not buy a Navvis platform houses. You buy it for 200,000 sqft per day. It can do that (I have some of their scanners) but it’s a completely different game. Also hallways can completely ruin a scan in post.
That whole outfit is too bulky and awkward AF.