COLORADO - November 19, 2012 - Merrick & Company (www.merrick.com) won first place in the civil/survey category of the "High Definition Surveying (HDS) Plan" contest, hosted by Leica Geosystems. The annual event is part of a worldwide conference, Hexagon 2012. The awards program allows Leica HDS/laser scanning users to submit posters with laser scanning deliverables in one of three categories, including buildings/heritage, civil/survey, and plant/marine. Winners were judged on completeness of plan, creative use of point cloud, creative use of model, and overall appearance.

Merrick's submittal represents a detailed image of a power substation facility. Merrick Survey utilized HD laser sensors to provide an as-built surveying and mapping product. The composite geo-referenced point cloud was collected with 18 scanworlds; each position rated at four million pixel resolution covering the twenty acre project site. The cloud dataset was digitized with conventional feature lines and points then exported to a CAD platform to create the final three-dimensional mapping product.

HDS TECHNOLOGY
Whether topographic surveying is done with a tape or chain, a total station, or GPS, the focus is on the collection of individual, significant points. In a day's work, hundreds or even thousands of points are collected by these types of measurement devices. Safety is a priority at Merrick and big part of the culture. Any technology that enhances safety by reducing a potential hazard of having a surveyor at the data point is a worthy consideration. Since HDS does not require a surveyor's presence at a data point, the operation is non-invasive in nature, thereby offering tremendous safety advantages.

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