Lidar Reality Capture
Light Detection and Ranging Saves Time and Cost
Leica BLK360
Errors in drawings are nothing new. In fact, inaccurate drawings are common. When it comes to material handling systems, errors in the building drawings or in existing material handling systems cost time, lost quality control, and overall cost to the customer.
"We’ve used the scanner on a number of projects, and it has saved us a lot of time in field surveys, and has helped us avoid some serious field modifications due to inaccurate customer building drawings." David Almquist, FloStor Sr. Design Engineer
The Cutting Edge Solution
In essence, the 3D scanner provides high definition photos with embedded data that allows us to accurately place conveyors and avoid obstacles that may be missed in manually measuring a job site. Not only do the pictures provide a 3D point cloud in which we can show our conveyor as they will be on site, it allows us to take measurements that would either be missed, or unobtainable with a tape measure or laser rangefinder. It also allows us to superimpose the customer drawing over a real image of their building.
When the scans were generated on a plastics closure manufacturer's facility, FloStor engineers discovered what appeared to be a misplaced column on their drawing. We had laid out the robot cell allowing for the column location as shown on their plant drawing, but the scans seemed to show that the column was misplaced. The FloStor project manager contacted the customer and had him double-check the location. The column was 20” off in their drawing. It would have been a nightmare to reengineer the robot cell in the field.
Sorter
The largest online retailer was also concerned about potential interferences with their existing conveyor where FloStor had installed one of the Hyden sorters, but we were able to show them 3D images of how our conveyors were placed relative to their existing equipment, which eased their concerns. They even talked about the feasibility of requiring other vendors to use the technology.
FloStor most recently used scanning technology for a parcel service company. The only drawing the customer had of the warehouse space was on an 11x17 flyer from the realtor. We scanned the building and created an accurate AutoCAD layout of their building space from the scans.