Today I was asked to look at what we could do with scan data collected using an SX12 Total Station / Scanner and Siteworks. The team had collected several station setups from which they had scanned the different sides of a sand stockpile.
The video below shows how to import the Siteworks .SPJ (Work Order Results) file and the associated JXL file containing the scan data and scan images. The SPJ file contained a stockpile boundary that can be used to form the base surface of the pile, the scan forms the top surface of the pile and we want to determine the volume.
The RPS Point Cloud Processor command allows us to rapidly reduce the 472000 points to ~13000 points using intelligent data reduction techniques that spatially analyze the point cloud and retain data where the terrain is changing a lot and discard data where the terrain is relatively constant (on flat areas or slope areas). The processor also allows the application of inclusion boundaries for the elimination of data in the scans not relevant to the process and also to be used as a boundary in the resulting surface that is created using the command.
The video shows the comparison between a surface made from 100% of the original data and a surface made with ~2.5% of the data - the comparisons are shown in terms of surface comparisons, surface slice comparisons, contour comparisons and volumetric analyses - the volumes agree to less than 1m3 and the surfaces agree to well within the tolerances specified.
With less data (but intelligently selected data) in the models, volumes take a fraction of the time to process, contours are smoother (less like popcorn) and surface computations are faster, surfaces have fewer spikes and no flags to manage.