Taking Data Capture to New Heights

Leading drone maker, 3D Robotics is teaming up with Autodesk

“Capturing site data today is costly, time consuming, and often dangerous. Drones can easily go where it’s inefficient or unsafe for field personnel, making it easier to accurately measure our world so we can better manage it,” says Chris Anderson, CEO of leading drone maker 3D Robotics.

3D Robotics (3DR) is using Autodesk’s Forge Platform to develop a new UAV-to-cloud solution for enterprise field professionals within the construction, telecom, survey, mapping, energy and infrastructure industries. The Forge platform consists of a set of Autodesk cloud services, APIs, and SDKs for developers to quickly create the data, apps, experiences, and services that power the future of making things.

Anderson describes that by leveraging the Forge platform, 3D Robotics is able to deliver “a complete solution for site capture that will help business customers save time and money and will take humans out of harm’s way.”

3DR is using Autodesk’s ReCap Photo Web application programming interface (API) to develop a reality capture solution that allows field professionals to quickly and easily perform inspections, surveys and scans of work sites from its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). For example, take telecom inspections that involve climbing tall towers. 3DR’s SOLO drone will capture data, then process it in the cloud using Autodesk ReCap, eliminating the need for personnel to risk injury.

Once boundary is drawn around the area selected in Site Scan app, 3DR’s SOLO drone will be ready to take off with one swipe to start the motor and another to take off.

Once processed by the Autodesk ReCap engine, the reality data (3D point cloud, 2D orthographic views, 3D mesh) is made available on A360, an Autodesk cloud platform, from where it can be downloaded to be used by Autodesk software to help field professionals with monitoring sites, measuring stock piles, getting the as-built context, survey and mapping, and more.

After data is collected and stored in the cloud Autodesk software helps with monitoring sites, measuring stock piles, getting the as-built context, survey and mapping, and more.

“We are excited to collaborate with 3D Robotics to help field service professionals collect information and make insightful decisions across a variety of industries,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president, Products at Autodesk. “From the integration of Site Scan and Autodesk cloud services, to their use of the Forge platform, 3D Robotics is opening up new ways of working for our architecture, engineering and construction customers.”

Editor’s note: To learn more about how Autodesk’s Forge Initiative helps developers, businesses and innovators create data, apps, experiences, and services visit http://forge.autodesk.com/