Bringing the field to the desktop: Using LiDAR and high-resolution panoramic imagery in Smallworld

How GIS can empower your teams to do more in the office

Sending staff out into the field is a necessary evil for many business processes within a telecoms operator — sometimes, there is just no way to avoid putting feet on the street. However, every time a truck rolls, there are associated costs. If those costs can be kept to a minimum, then the wider business can benefit by becoming more streamlined and cost-effective.

If planners had access to high-quality street-level image data that allowed accurate measurements to be taken, then it would be possible for them to make far more informed decisions in equipment placement. For example:

• Would that cabinet really work on that street corner, or would it be too visually disruptive?
• Would it be better to run a trench down the other side of the street to avoid those trees?
• Could construction teams safely access a particular site, or would it require a temporary road closure, introducing higher costs and potential delays?

Embedding LiDAR and panoramic imagery in your GIS saves time

With the increasing availability of different sources of data, the ability to reduce the number of field visits to support different processes is fast becoming a reality. Satellite imagery from Google® and Microsoft® (among others) has been available for a long time and is widely used to support various activities. However, often the resolution is insufficient to be useful for more than general situational awareness.

Google Street View ® took this to another level and can provide much greater intelligence to office users. But Street View® is not available in all parts of the world, and there are still some limitations. For example, you cannot make centimeter-level measurements from Street View®.

Recently, high-resolution panoramic imagery and LiDAR data have become more affordable and more widely available. A number of organizations now offer commercial products providing imagery and LiDAR. These products can be used to provide a level of situational awareness that was previously impossible and that further accurate measurements can be taken from.

Cyclomedia is one such organization. Cyclomedia offers data in Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. The Cyclomedia Street Smart™ interactive web viewer enables users to see and understand the real world from their desktops. Users can take accurate measurements as needed using high-resolution 360-degree panoramic images that are geometrically correct. Below you can see Street Smart™ embedded within the Smallworld environment.

Another organization, OrbitGT, offers a slightly different service than Cyclomedia. OrbitGT provides a platform that enables organizations to store both high-resolution panoramic imagery and LiDAR data, either captured directly or purchased from a specialist vendor using any reality capture technique.

Once the data is hosted in OrbitGT’s cloud-based or on-premise platform, it can easily be made available across an organization and seamlessly accessed by users to support their needs. Analysis tools can autodetect assets, and visualization can integrate with and optimize various stages of FTTx project planning. OrbitGT is now part of the Digital Cities group of Bentley Systems, providing offerings across the globe.

With both of these solutions, the real value of the data that is being provided can be realized when the data is made available within the organization’s existing systems. As mentioned previously, network planning and service assurance are examples of processes where seamless access to this type of data can reduce the number of truck rolls that are required.

GE’s Smallworld GIS solution can seamlessly integrate both Google’s Street View® and data hosted by Cyclomedia and OrbitGT. Imagery can be displayed directly in the Smallworld environment, and the user is able to move around the data, all the while seeing how this relates to the network data held in Smallworld. This level of seamless interaction can provide unparalleled flexibility for network planners and designers. From their office, they can gain an understanding of what the real world looks like and where a new network can be sited, while avoiding challenges from a health and safety perspective during construction, for example.

The screenshot below shows how OrbitGT data can be accessed directly within, in this case, Smallworld Physical Network Inventory (PNI):

On the left-hand side, you can see the standard Smallworld Physical Network Inventory user interface, overlaid on the map as a series of blue dots. Each dot represents a location where spherical imagery and LiDAR data was acquired (by the vehicle partially shown in the image on the right).

Users can access the OrbitGT data directly within the Smallworld environment, and the data is shown at the same time. As the user navigates in the spherical imagery on the right, the fan shared symbols indicate the field of view overlaid on the Smallworld map. Objects in Smallworld can be overlaid onto the spherical imagery and measurements taken and used directly in Smallworld.

This level of integration and flexibility now gives the office user an accurate window onto the world outside the office. Giving the planning, design, and operations teams access to this level of imagery can minimize the number of truck rolls, resulting in cost savings and an increase in the quality of new designs. These improvements are due to the much greater situational awareness that is now possible — bringing the field to the desktop.