LIDAR Magazine Podcast

Jeff Fagerman is CEO of LiDAR USA, the well-known UAV-lidar integrator, based near Huntsville, Alabama. He explains, in an entertaining way, how he first became involved in the geospatial world and how he was motivated to set up his own company 16 years ago. He espouses the beauties of a family business and is not reticent about the challenges of equipping UAVs with GNSS/IMU, camera and lidar comp...

Kevin Andrews is Director, Land Systems at Trimble Applanix in Toronto. He's been with the company for 26 years. In this episode, Kevin explains how the challenges for GNSS/IMU systems installed on land vehicles differ from those on airborne vehicles. He talks about the use of Trimble Applanix solutions on mobile mapping systems, rail vehicles, and construction equipment, covering the well-known P...

Phoenix LiDAR Systems was founded in 2013 and Grayson Omans is co-founder and CEO. In 2020, the company relocated from the Palms area of Los Angeles to Austin, Texas. In this episode, Grayson gives his reasons for making the move and assesses how successful it has proved, before describing the company's portfolio of hardware and software products. The evolving regulatory environment for UAVs has o...

Alex Brihac is Vice President, Head of Strategy and M&A at Hexagon Geosystems. He explains how his interest in engineering was imbued by his Romanian parents, resulting in his choices of undergraduate and graduate studies. His work for Turner Construction and McKinsey led to expertise in improving firms' performance as well as a deep interest in digital twins and how they should be created and use...

In this episode, Austin catches up with Raul Bravo, a prolific inventor holding more than 70 international patent families. As president and founder of Outsight, Raul explains how his firm's technologies transform streams of lidar data into real-time 3D spatial intelligence. The conversation delves into the analytical capabilities of dynamic 3D databases and explores the technical challenges of or...

In this episode, Mach9's co-founder and CEO, Alex Baikovitz, talks enthusiastically about the company's mission to improve geospatial workflows for generating information from point clouds, making heavy but considered use of AI, plus innovations from the world of robotics. His flagship product, Digital Surveyor, outputs the derived features to familiar CAD and GIS software suites and can be deploy...

Dr. Florent Poux is an award-winning researcher and adjunct professor in 3D Data Science at the University of Liège. Based in Toulouse, France, Florent operates the 3D Geodata Academy, a training resource dedicated to building innovations with 3D technology. In this episode, Austin gathers Dr. Poux's thoughts on how to employ novel data processing pipelines to extract value from 3D data. They also...

Dr. Helen Fricker is a Professor of Geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, one of the world's most important centers for global earth science research and education . Prior to her current role, Dr. Fricker was a science team member for NASA's Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat); she is currently the science team lead for ICESat-2, and Principle Investi...

Angus Pacala is CEO and co-founder of Ouster, a major lidar supplier based in San Francisco. The company made headlines in 2023 when it merged with arch-competitor Velodyne. Speaking from the company's offices in Edinburgh, Scotland (home of Sense Photonics, an Ouster acquisition in 2021), Angus addresses the company's technical developments and the status of its forthcoming L4 and Chronos solid-s...

Dr. John Adler is a geographer and remote sensing professional with a diverse career in academia, government, and ecological research. He serves as the Lead Airborne Sensor Operator for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) where he conducts airborne surveys across the nation during periods of peak vegetation greenness, contributing to large-scale ecological data collection efforts. I...

In this episode, Stewart speaks with James Rush, Lidar Subject Matter Expert, Allen & Company, about his employer and his personal journey into lidar management. Allen & Company has roots in conventional land surveying, but its offerings today include extensive services in laser scanning of buildings, producing deliverables such as BIMs and digital twins. To this end, it has a subsidiary, Allen3D....

Dr. Ralph Dubayah is a Distinguished Professor of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the Principal Investigator for NASA's Global Ecosystems Dynamics Investigation Lidar (GEDI) – a full waveform lidar onboard the International Space Station (ISS). In this episode we hear from Dr. Dubayah about the ins and outs of GEDI as well as an upcoming spaceborne lidar mi...

Josh Novac, Associate Vice President, and Program Manager in the Geospatial, Mapping, and Survey department at Dewberry, talks about how he came to enter the geospatial profession. He discusses the satisfaction and enthusiasm that his 18 years with Dewberry have engendered and explains how the family-owned nature of the business brings special advantages in terms of serving clients. Josh talks abo...

Philippe Simard is CEO of SimActive, the Montreal-based supplier of photogrammetric software, which he founded in 2003 with his brother, Louis, who is CTO. We explore how the company began with a successful Canadian defense procurement and has focused consistently on both ease of use and speed. SimActive's flagship Correlator3D product has evolved over 22 years and supports imagery acquired by UAV...

In this episode, Dr. Steven Woolven, president of Trimble Applanix, manufacturer of GNSS-aided inertial technologies for mobile mapping and positioning, talks about the foundation of the company and how he was tempted to join shortly after completing his PhD. He describes the rapid growth experienced during early years, the benefits of being acquired by Trimble in 2003, and the impressive number o...

NavVis unveiled its new MLX handheld laser scanner for reality capture at INTERGEO in September 2024. The MLX complements the VLX2 and VLX3 wearable systems and answers customer requests for a smaller, more nimble product at a lower price-point. In this episode, NavVis co-founder and CEO Dr. Felix Reinshagen talks about the new product as well as intriguing implications, such as the tipping point...

Mike Zoeller and Adam Mosbrucker play key roles within the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Volcano Hazards Program. Both Mike and Adam rely heavily on the use of lidar and its derivative products to support applied science projects related to the specific volcanology of their respective regions, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) and the Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO), respectively....

The substantial achievements of UAV-lidar integrators have featured frequently in  LIDAR Magazine 's articles and posted press releases. Dr. Tristan Allouis, co-founder and CEO of YellowScan, based in beautiful Montpellier, France, talks about why he started the company in 2012, only a year after completing his PhD. He explains the YellowScan product lines and is particularly proud of the in-house...

Many of us have marveled at NASA's spaceborne lidar systems, ICESat-2 and GEDI. The technical challenges of detecting returning photons and generating accurate elevation data are considerable. An Orlando start-up, NUVIEW, is planning a constellation of 21 lidar smallsats, each about the size of a dishwasher. The first one, "Mr. Spock" or space proof of concept, is in an advanced stage of preparati...

Katreen Wikstrom-Jones and Jill Nicolazzo work at the Alaska Department of Natural Resources: Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys (DGGS). Within the geohazards department, they utilize field measurements, remotely sensed data products, and numerical models to glean a better understanding of climate and cryosphere hazards.  In this episode, we chat about how the team utilizes airborne li...

In this episode, we introduce Austin Madson, associate editor of LIDAR Magazine and co-host of the podcast. An Earth scientist by trade, Austin has research interests that intersect the hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere. Currently a professor at the University of Wyoming School of Computing, we discuss how he became involved with geospatial technology. We also address his drone l...

McKim & Creed is an engineering and surveying firm with 24 offices in the southeastern US. In this episode, Matt LaLuzerne, National Director of BD & Geospatial Services, and Ravi Soneja, UAS Program Manager, talk about their careers and why they joined McKim & Creed. We discuss the firm's characteristics, capabilities and approach to project management. The conversation broadens to consider the e...

In this episode, Dr. Austin Madson interviews Chris Crosby, the co-principal investigator and director of operations and strategy for the OpenTopography project. OpenTopography facilitates efficient access to topographic data, tools, and resources to advance our understanding of the Earth's surface, vegetation, and the built environment. Funded by the National Science Foundation, it's arguably the...

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is perhaps the best-known standards body in the lidar world. In this episode, Chief Standards Officer Scott Simmons describes the organization, its structure and processes. We also discuss lidar, especially OGC's work with the LAS and LAZ lidar data formats and the efforts of its Point Cloud Domain Working Group. Our discussion delves further into OGC's interac...

Ron Roth, Product Manager Airborne Topographic Lidar, Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon talks about his life in lidar since the mid-1990s and about the evolution of Leica Geosystems' airborne topographic lidar product line, of which the latest model is Leica TerrainMapper-3. He explains the trend to hybrid airborne systems that capture both imagery and lidar. He also touches on the topobathymetric...