SiteSee was pleased to welcome guests from the 3D modelling and drone ecosystems to our Reality Modelling Information Night, at Brisbane startup hub River City Labs, on February 7. The evening was an opportunity for us to present the learnings from own reality modelling capture methodology, including recent the developments to our operations and technology.
With more than 100 registered attendees, the info night centered on bringing together some of the brightest minds in Australia’s UAV ecosystem and reality modelling community, with the intention of promoting collaboration towards delivering complete business solutions.
The night began with a project recap from Bentley Systems, presented by Account Manager Malcolm Doyle. Malcolm demonstrated the ongoing benefits to business achieved with a presentation of Bentley’s 2015 Philadelphia project, which saw more than 28,000 images combined into a virtual mesh of the city. Drawing from both aerial- and ground-captured data, they were able to create a high-fidelity reconstruction to assist in site management and security in preparation for a visit from the Pope. The Philadelphia project highlighted the real-world applications and use cases of reality modelling, and the functional impacts possible through clever utilization of digitized twins.
Spatial Consultant Marc Rietman then ran us through the fundamentals of photogrammetry, its benefits and limitations, and its importance to the reality modelling process. Marc explained how the photogrammetry process can be achieved with widely accessible hardware, as long as the data capture process is completed in a specific manner to ensure image quality and accuracy; his emphasis on the importance of efficient data collection methodology was later reinforced by SiteSee CEO Lucio Piccoli.
SiteSee Co-Founder Lachlan Crane continued the proceedings by detailing how SiteSee’s technical applications can benefit multiple industry verticals including telecommunications, natural resources, energy, civil and more.
Lachlan also highlighted the ways that our automated capabilities enable us to provide interactive, accurate reality models to deliver useful data for our clients. He handed over to Lucio, who explained the developments to our capture methodology from a more technical perspective.
Lucio detailed how SiteSee places an emphasis on delivering a technical service that is scalable, repeatable, accurate and commercially applicable. To ensure this, SiteSee’s data-capture methodology has been streamlined to leverage off-the-shelf equipment, step-by-step instructions for capturing imagery, and purpose-designed autopilot applications.
Lucio explained how we coordinate the entire capture process from flight path, camera specs, calibration, and ground control, with the intention of optimizing processing efficiency and minimizing our clients’ wait for the final product.
The evening concluded with a panel discussion featuring representatives from Nearmap, FlyFreely, Hovermap, Six Arms as well as a professional drone pilot – who collectively represent a sample of the services and technologies that are contributing to end-to-end solutions for enterprise clients. The goal of the panel was to identify and reflect on our businesses’ current approaches, and how we can work towards end-to-end reality modelling solutions collaboratively.
During the panel, professional drone pilot David Alam, from Australian Drones, described his experience on a recent data-capture course with SiteSee as an “eye-opener”. David emphasized that the course enhanced his understanding of the collaborative processes required to deliver a quality product that meets client needs.
Our panel concluded by addressing an array of questions from our eager audience members, with topics ranging from what to consider when deciding to implement a drone program, the potential of autonomous drones, effective data processing, and how to best manage operational challenges in the field.
Co-Founder & Sales Director Lachlan Crane said of the information night that it was “a tremendous success. We were blown away with the quality of local talent and technical capabilities coming out of Australia. There’s a lot of ‘noise’ about drone services and technical capabilities, which can hugely complicate matters for enterprise clients seeking to implement tailored business solutions. SiteSee firmly believes that best results are achieved through collaboration, and we will continue to support and collaborate with providers to deliver complete business solutions for our enterprise clients.”
