Civil/Survey Workflow:
Surveyors are often asked to create maps of areas that may be hazardous to occupy, costly to re-visit, or simply a challenge to survey due to the site's detail and complexity. For these projects and others, laser scanning often provides a better way to capture the area. Leica Geosystems HDS LLC's latest software, it's easy to process laser scans into typical survey deliverables.
There are two popular ways to extract point and line data from a geo-referenced point cloud:
1. Utilize your favorite CAD application such as Autodesk Land Desktop, MicroStation InRoads or Bentley GEOPAK. Using Leica Geosystems HDS, Inc.'s CloudWorx software, the geo-referenced point cloud would be accessed and visualized right in your CAD environment. CAD operators can use all the familiar tools to create planimetric or topographic maps (including contours) by overlaying points, lines, and symbols directly on the point cloud features.
2. Extract features directly from point cloud using Cyclone software's Virtual Surveyor tool and then export these feature codes as a standard ASCII format into the surveying software of your choice. If you are using AutoCAD- or MicroStation-based platforms, the original raw point cloud can also be brought in (via CloudWorx) to verify the feature extractions and add detail to the existing topographic representation.
