Targetless registration? Automatic registration? No problem, right? All of a sudden, it seems like every software package is offering these kinds of options. Only one company, however, has specifically mentioned to me its ability to do this in an outdoor environment.
When Riegl released its new Risolve software package, it similarly touted “fully automatic registration and colorization of scan data,” but maybe didn’t put as fine a point as it could have on its outdoor capabilities. When I caught up with software project manager Ananda Fowler at SPAR Europe, though, that was the first differentiation he made sure to bring up.
And it makes sense: Automatic registration works by matching features in overlapping scans. When you’re outdoors, it’s much less likely you’ll have easily identifiable features within your scans. You might even have vast tracts of blue sky. Perhaps this is just marketing spin, and any of these packages could work outside – I certainly haven’t had the ability to test each one out in a variety of environments – but I found myself nodding my head upon hearing Riegl’s pitch about how they’ve designed software to work hand-in-glove with their scanners.
Watch my interview with Fowler and see if you’re nodding your head as well:
