In this episode, Stewart speaks with James Rush, Lidar Subject Matter Expert, Allen & Company, about his employer and his personal journey into lidar management. Allen & Company has roots in conventional land surveying, but its offerings today include extensive services in laser scanning of buildings, producing deliverables such as BIMs and digital twins. To this end, it has a subsidiary, Allen3D. James discusses some of the projects on which Allen is working and examines how the specifications are reached in discussion with clients, paying appropriate attention to published standards. He also describes an initiative at Tucker Ranch, near the company’s headquarters in Winter Garden, Florida, in which he arranged for 17 collections of lidar point clouds of a small area, to provide a most unusual reference data set for many purposes.
--------
40:47
#19 - Ralph Dubayah
Dr. Ralph Dubayah is a Distinguished Professor of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the Principal Investigator for NASA’s Global Ecosystems Dynamics Investigation Lidar (GEDI) – a full waveform lidar onboard the International Space Station (ISS). In this episode we hear from Dr. Dubayah about the ins and outs of GEDI as well as an upcoming spaceborne lidar mission that’s under preparation. We wrap up with a discussion of Dr. Dubayah’s dream for airborne laser scanning (ALS) from space!
--------
42:18
#18 - Josh Novac
Josh Novac, Associate Vice President, and Program Manager in the Geospatial, Mapping, and Survey department at Dewberry, talks about how he came to enter the geospatial profession. He discusses the satisfaction and enthusiasm that his 18 years with Dewberry have engendered and explains how the family-owned nature of the business brings special advantages in terms of serving clients. Josh talks about Dewberry’s decision to acquire airborne topobathymetric lidar systems and describes some of the projects that the company is currently tackling. On a more personal note, he talks about his friend and mentor, Dave Maune, whose autobiography, 25¢ Piano Lessons, was published at the end of 2024.
--------
31:20
#17 - Philippe Simard
Philippe Simard is CEO of SimActive, the Montreal-based supplier of photogrammetric software, which he founded in 2003 with his brother, Louis, who is CTO. We explore how the company began with a successful Canadian defense procurement and has focused consistently on both ease of use and speed. SimActive’s flagship Correlator3D product has evolved over 22 years and supports imagery acquired by UAVs, aircraft and satellites, with pricing dependent on image size. It is installed in over 100 countries, indicating the company’s steady growth. The brothers’ college degrees are in computer vision, so the podcast touches on this approach to photogrammetry as opposed to the classical one taught in geomatics programs over the years.
--------
39:08
#16 - Steven Woolven
In this episode, Dr. Steven Woolven, president of Trimble Applanix, manufacturer of GNSS-aided inertial technologies for mobile mapping and positioning, talks about the foundation of the company and how he was tempted to join shortly after completing his PhD. He describes the rapid growth experienced during early years, the benefits of being acquired by Trimble in 2003, and the impressive number of employees who have remained with the Toronto-area firm for decades. The transformation of the business from a few high-end units per annum to large numbers of modestly prices systems for UAVs and other applications is highlighted, including the recently launched APX RTX product line and the PX-1 for UAV navigation.
The LIDAR Magazine podcast, hosted by Dr. Stewart Walker, brings measurement, positioning and imaging technologies to light for today's geospatial professional. Since 2012, we've addressed all aspects of lidar: including airborne topographic and bathymetric; terrestrial; mobile; close range; underwater and others. Join us as we map the lidar revolution! Generously sponsored by LAStools LiDAR Processing.
Ireland