Depending on the scale of the surveyed area and on the kind of data required for the analysis, various surveying technologies can be employed. These can be applied for tasks varying from detection of changes to structural monitoring, whether in geosciences or for industrial applications. Not only land surveyors but also specialists of various research communities make use of surveying techniques. Comparisons with the results delivered by well-established survey instruments show the reliability of the Trimble SX10 for geodetic work as well as for scanning projects.Īs with almost every research area, the field of surveying and its equipment evolve with the technological innovations leading to ever faster, more accurate and more versatile devices. Directly and indirectly georeferenced projects have been carried out and are investigated in this paper, and a polygonal traverse is performed through a building. The paper also addresses the topic of various laser scanning projects and the delivered point clouds are compared with those of other TLS. In this paper this new instrument is introduced and first compared to state-of-the-art image-assisted total stations. The recent Trimble SX10 scanning total station is a survey instrument merging high-speed 3D scanning and the capabilities of an image-assisted total station. Nowadays, a few modern total stations combine their conventional capabilities with those of a laser scanner in a unique device. Nevertheless, traditional surveying techniques are valuable in some kinds of projects.
In many cases, the Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) tends to become an optimal alternative to total station measurements thanks to the high point acquisition rate it offers, but also to ever deeper data processing software functionalities. Surveying fields from geosciences to infrastructure monitoring make use of a wide range of instruments for accurate 3D geometry acquisition.