Urban Reality—Taking 3D Mapping to the Street

By providing more accurate and precise 3D models of urban features at ground level, the mobile system is designed to surpass the capabilities of current airborne and terrestrial tripod collection systems.

System can be mounted on any vehicle

SAIC's Urban Reality™ system consists of lightweight LIDAR (Light Detecting and Ranging) sensors, high-end digital cameras, GPS, inertial navigation, sensor control software, and other components that can be mounted on the top of virtually any vehicle. As the vehicle navigates a city, the system rapidly collects high-resolution 3D models of the urban features and structures that can be used for a broad spectrum of operations.

In addition to military, homeland security, and law enforcement applications, the system has widespread applications for the commercial world, said Jeff Turner, chief technology officer of SAIC's Geospatial Technologies Division, which also developed a ruggedized version of the system for the military.

Capturing ground details

"As we supported numerous requirements for airborne imagery missions in the post 9-11 era, it quickly became apparent with the global war on terror and urban warfare that we needed something that captured the immense details down on the ground. Things you couldn't normally see from various altitudes," said Turner. "This new generation of 3D data could support mission rehearsal, counter sniper, situational awareness, robotic navigation, vulnerability assessments, things like that."

The ruggedized version of the system, which can be mounted in a Humvee turret, is designed to help provide warfighters patrolling an urban environment with an up-to-date, high-resolution model of the urban terrain that can be viewed, manipulated and analyzed.

"For example, it can help with mission rehearsals and plan convoy routes. Where am I most vulnerable? If I'm standing on this building, what would I see? Who can see me? Where are the potential sniper locations? What's the best route for a robot or unmanned vehicle to take through a city to avoid obstacles?" Turner says.

Building on success

Building on lessons learned from that effort, Turner is currently managing an SAIC-funded internal research and development project to commercialize the system.

"That's how Urban Reality was born," he says, adding that state and local governments and commercial customers can benefit from a system like Urban Reality that can help them to better plan and coordinate engineering, utility, and construction operations, including "as built" analysis, site and damage assessment, and site re-engineering, to cite just a few examples.

A key component of Urban Reality is a hardware synchronization box. "We call it the 'heart beat system.' It's basically a device that synchronizes the cameras, the lasers, the GPS, and the inertial navigation system," Turner said.

The 3D databases can be exported into numerous formats or viewed and analyzed directly with SAIC's custom 3D visualization software. Mission processing software uses post-processed differential GPS to turn the LIDAR data and imagery into georegistered colorized point clouds with 5-10cm resolution and sub-meter georeferencing.

Turner came to SAIC in 2006 when Geo-Spatial Technologies, Inc. (GSTI), was acquired by SAIC and transitioned to SAIC's Technology and Advanced Systems Business Unit.

A leader in high-resolution 3D mapping, imaging, and visualization technology for the Department of Defense, GSTI worked with revolutionary laser sensor and video technology hosted in unmanned aerial vehicles, land vehicles, and man-portable operations.