The boss of a business that produced a digital map of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro says the East Midlands is gaining a reputation in geospatial technology.
Graham Hunter is the founder and chief executive of GeoSLAM, an East Midlands company that provides services and technology for building 3D maps of objects, structures and buildings which it sells to customers around the world.
The firm’s lightweight tech uses lasers to bounce signals off objects to measure their size and shape, and the equipment can be handheld, carried on drones or mounted on cars.
READ MORE: {}
A GeoSLAM team recently produced a digital twin of the interior and exterior of the 98 ft figure of Christ, which stands 2,320 ft above the city of Rio.
And it is working with the University of Arizona and University of Iceland to scan erupting volcanoes in Reykjavik.
Its technology has been used to map everything from tall and historic buildings, to homes that are up for sale, suspension bridges, forests, railway tunnels and even vineyards.
Once the data is uploaded the GeoSLAM software can create a digital model on a laptop in just a few minutes.
Along with its Nottingham base, the business has offices in the Netherlands, the USA and Australia, and its technology and support is being used more and more to aid in the documentation of historic or hard-to-reach landmarks.
Most Read
Mr Hunter said the business employed a broad mix of engineers, software developers, and geospatial specialists and was steadily building its reputation around the world – partly thanks to home-grown talent.
He said: “I’m hugely proud of what we’ve been able to achieve in near 10 years of operating.
“Right from the start, we’ve had ambitions to create transformational technology that has an impact on the world – from creating software that unlocks industry-specific challenges, to designing game-changing hardware that continues to break the boundaries of the geospatial industry and beyond.
“We also created the market for handheld mapping, right here in Nottingham.
“It started with us and, since then, many organisations have followed us into this space. It’s a hard thing to replicate though, as that success has been down to our people.
“Our ground-breaking technology is built by some of the most talented production engineers, GIS specialists and software developers.
“It’s thanks to those minds – located both at our Ruddington-headquarters and globally – that our technology has stood at the forefront of the industry for nearly 10 years and, with so much technology talent in Nottinghamshire, we continue to find new ways to lead the LiDAR [light detection and ranging] and SLAM [autonomous mapping] market globally.
Don’t miss
“Besides our central, well-connected location on the map, the East Midlands is a great geospatial hub.
“Here, we’ve got three big players in the geospatial world – the University of Nottingham’s Geospatial Institute, the University of Leicester and the British Geological Survey (BGS), based in Nottingham.
“There’s a real centre of geospatial excellence on our doorstep in Nottingham, and we’ve got direct feeder routes from those educational institutes that act as an incubator for future talent.
“We actively recruit from and work closely with our local universities.
“For example, we help the lecturers develop their geospatial programmes so that the students feel they are getting under the skin of the industry early – knowing what to expect, what opportunities may exist in the industry beyond education and emphasise the impact that digitalisation can have on the built and natural environment.”
There are currently 85 people working at GeoSLAM, with most based at the 海角视频 headquarters, and the rest scattered around the European, US and Australia offices.
And Mr Hunter said the headcount was still growing.
He said: “Despite it being a challenging year for everyone because of the pandemic, we’re proud to say that we’re looking to expand our team even further with the appointment of new team members.
“Many of these will help to fuel the efforts at our 海角视频-base, but there are opportunities to join our overseas teams.
“Because of our global set-up, and frequent communication between offices, there’s a real sense of global collaboration at GeoSLAM making knowledge-sharing really exciting.
“To be working on something labelled ‘the world’s first’ is an immense achievement, and certainly one that creates a regular buzz around our offices.
“To achieve something that no one else thought possible is very much at the heart of our work, and something we strive to achieve. The strong culture here also plays a big role in people joining and staying with us.
“Although the world has changed significantly in the last 12-months, during ‘normal’ times, we also offer our teams the opportunity to travel – supporting dealers on projects, visiting exhibitions and attending conferences, we like to help open the eyes of our employees and give them the chance to develop personally and professionally.”
The future will see new developments for the business, he said, including new software packages and even using existing mobile phone technology to expand the company’s reach.
He said: “The use of LiDAR has undoubtedly become a mainstream technology, and while self-driving cars are in their infancy, there are many ways LiDAR and SLAM are being used already, today.
“For instance, the latest iPhone contains a small LiDAR scanner which will open up a whole host of new apps and ways of using LiDAR for smaller projects.
“GeoSLAM is positioned to drive the adoption of SLAM through commercial and industrial uses, from mapping buildings and creating digital floorplans, to understanding underground cave and mine networks.
“The next few months are set to be really exciting for us too, first with the launch of our cutting-edge automated software platform, GeoSLAM Connect, which will provide the basis for all future software development here and will seek to alleviate many of the industry-specific challenges – in construction, mining and education - that we’ve come to learn about.
“Off the back of our most recent project in Rio de Janeiro scanning the Christ the Redeemer monument, we’re also gearing up to work on a number of really interesting projects.
“While some projects we’re keeping under wraps for now, we’ve just worked alongside the University of Arizona and University of Iceland on scanning erupting volcanoes in Reykjavik using our ZEB Horizon scanner – indeed, it’s not just about the built environment for us, the natural world fascinates us too and we’re keen to see how our technology performs in such a hostile environment.
"We’re looking forward to sharing the results of that really soon.”