Leica BLK2GO As demand for more portable, rapid scanning solutions increases, Leica has unleashed its first, handheld SLAM device, the BLK2GO, together with a new cloud-based visualisation and collaboration platform, HxDR. Martyn Day reports
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he laser scanning market tends to move glacially. It’s an old and mature technology, and revolution is not in its nature. There have been some glimpses of excitement over the years — when Faro brought out a £20k scanner that could fit in an aeroplane carry on, or when the major CAD software developers built point cloud engines into their core BIM tools, but critical mass has never been achieved. Then in 2016 Leica did something atypical - it brought out the ridiculously gorgeous £15k BLK360. The compact laser scanner was ideal for scanning interiors and the device was tied into the equally innovative Autodesk Recap on an iPad, but just as we thought this might be a real catalyst for change, no other firms joined in at that price point. Laser scanning continued to stubbornly stay out of the reach of the masses, compounded by the fact that Leica couldn’t make enough of the BLK360 to satisfy the demand. Now Leica has a new product and its styling looks like it’s from the future. Could this be the product that finally democratises point cloud capture?
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Everything from the design of the device, to the ease of one button operation and the speed make the BLK2GO a highly desirable surveying and data capture tool
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The first thing that has to be said is that Leica must be employing an incredibly talented industrial design team. Both the BLK360 and the new BLK2GO are the most beautiful looking scanning devices that have ever been made. Even if you didn’t know what the BLK2GO did, you’d still want one and would want to hold it and show it to your friends like it was a Fabergé egg. The BLK360 is a static laser scanning device for rapid point cloud capture over short distances. In contrast, the new BLK2GO is highly portable and adapts SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation And
Mapping) technology, which was originally developed for robots and autonomous vehicles. There is a price for this liberating scanning technology over a standard tripodmounted laser scanner and that’s accuracy. SLAM point clouds are typically accurate to around 20mm, which is still incredible when you consider a site that would take a day to capture through traditional methods, might be done ten times faster with a SLAM device. However, this limitation means there will be times when the BLK2GO isn’t appropriate compared to traditional surveying. Leica’s BLK2GO has been designed to be as simple to use as possible. Featuring one button operation, it wirelessly links with a Leica iPhone app, so the operator can see in real-time the data it gathers in both 2D and 3D. The device features enough internal storage for 24 hours of scanning (compressed), 6 hours uncompressed and has an exchangeable battery which lasts for approximately 50 minutes. The range, however, is not huge — from 0.5m to 25m — but this is a SLAM device so your feet can do the work. It combines a 420,000 pts per second laser scanner with a 12-megapixel camera, together
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17/09/2020 13:21
