The company’s 8200SR model scanner provides a solution for cavity surveys up to a 500m range, with a 10m extendable carbon fibre boom used to extend the scanner into a tunnel or over a void. 

The 8200ER has a longer range of 750m, making it applicable to underground drives and tunnels, as well as surface stockpiles. 

By making I-Site compatible with the company’s Sentry surface tracking software, Maptek managing director Peter Johnson said more operations could benefit from the system.

“Sentry combines laser scan data with sophisticated software to track and analyse surface movement over time,” Johnson explained. 

“Any movement can potentially lead to failures, so early warning is vital.

“Researching ways that Sentry could function in low light led to development of an intensity-based grayscale image.

“This benefits our underground customers as well as improving visibility for open pit applications at night.

“A great feature of Sentry is it provides absolute tracking. You can take the scanner away to perform another task and return it to the Sentry setup without having to start measuring from scratch.”

Sentry includes a rollback feature for easier data analysis along with other enhancements, while a new backsight workflow feature incorporated into I-Site allows survey resection by triangulating three coordinated targets to find the current real world position of the scanner. 

Johnson said I-Site scanners helped with site safety through Sentry as well as providing conformance reporting using the company’s other software I-Site Studio, Drive and PerfectDig. 

He said laser scanning provided a flexible solution for general survey and volumetric tasks, and the point cloud data could be used in geological face mapping and geotechnical analysis.