PrecisionPoint Hires sUAS Pilot to Enhance 3D Reality Capture Services

Experienced in the operations of numerous drones and related software packages, Hirschfeld is certified by the FAA to pilot small UASs, including the multi-rotor UAS recently purchased by PrecisionPoint. He holds a degree in Agriculture from Purdue University and comes to PrecisionPoint after eight years in agricultural research.

“Will’s first responsibility is to help us offer a more complete 3D reality capture service for our existing client base in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Facility Owners (AECO) markets, especially in the Building Information Model (BIM) sector where the company has been pioneering 3D as-built SCAN-to-BIM services since 2009,” said PrecisionPoint Founder and President Mark Hanna.

PrecisionPoint will continue to provide survey-grade 3D reality capture scanning and SCAN-to-BIM solutions for the interior of buildings, plants and facilities using the latest in terrestrial laser scanning technology. Going forward, the Midwest-based firm will also use the multi-rotor UAS to capture digital imagery of the exterior roofs and other surfaces too difficult or dangerous to scan with terrestrial laser scanners. Photogrammetric software will convert the drone imagery to a 3D point cloud and merge it with the laser scan point data for a more comprehensive reality capture deliverable.

“The result will be a highly accurate 3D model of the structure’s interior and exterior precisely tied to the local coordinate network,” said Hirschfeld. “The combination of terrestrial scanning, survey ground control and UAS imagery will allow PrecisionPoint to offer a unique deliverable to our clients in the Architecture, Engineering & Construction space.

In addition, PrecisionPoint will deploy the drone as part of a new periodic aerial monitoring service for the construction business. In this service, the drone will capture imagery in and around active construction sites to document the progress of building activities, saving time and money by allowing project engineers to plan logistics for the next phases and ensure the as-built work follows the design.

Relying heavily on the UAS and 3D solutions expertise of the growing PrecisionPoint staff, the firm plans to expand its services into new market verticals including: Insurance, Telecommunications, Agriculture, Safety & Security and Mining. For instance, in precision agriculture the drone can be used to identify areas of crop stress before they are visible to the naked eye. And the airborne system combined with ground-based lasers can be used to assist insurance adjusters and forensics experts in accurately recreating accident scenes and building failures.

“These new UAS-based services will be built on our core 3D scanning, dimensional control surveying and 3D BIM modeling competencies that we have developed over the past decade,” said Hanna.