Transmap

Vehicle based LiDAR systems are the latest craze of the mapping and surveying industry. As LiDAR mobile mapping has become state-of-the-art, new products target niche applications.

I found 2 new products that are ideal for roadway mapping. They are truly portable, which means they can be easily installed in different types of vehicles, such as cars, boats or even trains.

The first one comes from Topcon, a company well know for its high quality GPS receivers and surveying equipment. It is a road profiling system that's integrated with a navigation system. It can be used for pavement management, road surface condition analysis and planning resurfacing projects.

The other one is a rotating laser that's fully integrated with GPS and an inertial system, called Dynascan. It was developed in the UK and has been used for surveying quarries, harbor installations and bridges.

There’s a lot of buzz about 3D mobile mapping and LiDAR these days. Is this technology ready for prime time? Is it worth the investment?

Aerial LiDAR has become the state of the art for creating digital elevation models (DEMs) by simply flying an airplane equipped with a laser scanner over all kinds of terrain. The DEM is a fundamental component for creating digital orthophotos.

Orthophotos are everywhere. Just open Google Maps and you will see high quality satellite image maps not only all over the US, but almost anywhere in the world.

The same technology that has been used in airplanes for a number of years is now being installed in cars. Numerous manufacturers sell vehicles equipped with a combination of GPS and inertial sensors, high resolution digital cameras and LiDAR that can create highly accurate “point clouds” while driving along streets at regular speeds.

Transmap’s very own ON-SIGHT™ mobile mapping system is equipped with a LiDAR sensor. It has been used for many sign inventory projects in the past. Currently, we are working on a street light inventory and employ the LiDAR scanner to accurately map the heights and dimensions of street lights.

An important component of pavement management is the preservation of our roadways. You may have used MicroPaver™ or some other pavement management software to inventory the surface condition of your roadways. You probably computed the pavement condition index (PCI) for all of your street sections and your street network.

Now it is time to repair the sections that are in poor condition or failing.

Watch this video to get a good overview of pavement management and preservation strategies.

If you want to dig into more detail you should study FHWA’s Pavement Preservation Treatment Construction Guide. There you will learn how to choose the best treatment strategy to preserve the condition of your street network and extend its service life.

Once you collected road surface distresses in the field, entered them into MicroPAVER™ and computed the pavement condition index (PCI) for each street segment. Now it is time to use the power of your pavement management system to plan the rehabilitation of your street network.

In MicroPAVER™ you have the option to create 3 different types of reports that display the condition of your roadway network. You can open these reports by clicking the “Reports” button on the MicroPAVER™ toolbar. When the report window opens you can choose Summary Charts, Standard Reports or User Defined Reports. There’s also a GIS option, but we will cover this later.

Summary Charts

In MicroPAVER™ summary charts are used to to display network level statistics. For instance, the chart below shows the distribution of 7 different pavement condition brackets relative to the area of pavement affected by a certain condition.

Here you can read more about MicroPaver Pavement Management reports and training!

A couple of weeks ago I explained how to collect pavement distress information for the MicroPAVER™ software.

Let’s take a look at the process of entering this information in MicroPAVER™.

If you have paper records you will have to type the information into your pavement management system manually. This can be accomplished in the Distress Inventory window, which you can launch by clicking the PCI button on the toolbar.

With the distress data loaded you can begin analyzing the information. Simply click the Calculate Conditions button. This will open the condition index window and compute the pavement condition index (PCI) for the segment you are on.

The PCI is a number between 0 and 100 that represents the average condition of the pavement in a specific segment.

A value of 100 indicates an excellent condition rating, while 0 is the worst. Most users will split this scale into 7 levels. Others use only 3 levels, such as adequate, degraded and unsatisfactory.

The PCI is calculated from 3 inputs:

• the distress type (one of the 19 types on the MicroPAVER™ form)
• the distress quantity (the square footage or length of a specific distress)
• the distress severity (considers the condition rating you assigned to each distress)

To visualize the meaning of the pavement condition index look at the table below. The PCI was divided into 7 different categories from “good” to “failed”. You can also see the “remaining life” of the pavement in each group, as well as, a short list of rehabilitation options.

Each of the rehabilitation options has a price (per mile) associated with it. Now you can estimate the cost of repairing a specific street segment, and return it to good condition.

Of course, MicroPAVER™ allows you to calculate the PCI’s for all segments in your network. This will tell you, for instance, how many miles of street network are in “very poor” (PCI: 26 – 40) condition, and how much money you would have to spend to get them back in “good” shape.

In 2 weeks we’ll talk more about reporting. You will learn how to display MicroPAVER™ data in a GIS to visualize the PCI on your street center line map.

Do you have any questions about the pavement condition index and how to compute it in your software? Don’t hesitate to call Transmap Corporation at (877) 263-5589 x4.

In January 2012 new rules governing street signs will take effect. To become MUTCD compliant your community must establish and implement a sign assessment or management method to maintain minimum levels of sign retro-reflectivity.

One of our customers, the City of Irvine, CA, has successfully implemented a sign management system in 2010.

In less than 3 months Transmap created a roadway inventory and mapped 388 miles of roadway as well as all of the City’s bike trails. Out of digital roadway images we inventoried 27,000 signs. Transmap mapped sign locations to better than 1 meter, the type of sign, condition, and numerous other parameters.

What makes this system so easy to use for the City of Irvine?

The sign inventory is completely integrated with the City’s Web GIS and perfectly overlays on top of orthophotos and street centerlines. Users can access maps, roadway images and sign data over the Internet from Transmap’s ArcGIS server.

Here's a picture of the Web GIS and sign management system how it appears in your Internet Browser.

We are publishing a 5 part mini-tutorial on MicroPAVER™ to start the year with some Pavement Mangement basics.

MicroPAVER™ is one of the most popular pavement management systems around. It has been developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. They still maintain and upgrade the program. At the official MicroPAVER™ website you can download manuals and read about new developments. However, you can't get the program (except, if you are a Department of Defense user).

Everyone else can get it from APWA or the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) of the University of Illinois.

When you order from APWA, it will cost you $995, if you are a member. Non-members pay $1,095. The package includes the software, user manuals, a number of pavement management books and 1 year of technical support and upgrades. The renewal fees are $550 for members and $650 for non-members.

When you buy MicroPAVER™ you get a site license for your organization, so you will not be charged per seat.

If you want to get hands-on MicroPAVER pavement management training and don't just listen to recordings offered by APWA, feel free to call Craig Schorling toll free at (877) 263-5589.

We call it the TM button. It is a way to enhance Esri's ArcGIS Server and give users like you a different view of the roadways.

The TM button enables street level images in ArcGIS. Click the button and you will be able to display digital images of the roadway and the surrounding right-of-way inside ArcGIS.

While most GIS applications rely on vector maps and orthophotos, the additional dimension of ground level images is necessary for asset management applications. You don't only want to know the location of your assets (signs, street lights, signals), but you also want to see how they look like and the condition they are in. This information is impossible to get from even the highest resolution aerial photographs or satellite images.

With TM images you can do a virtual drive along a street, see the buildings, sidewalks, bridges and everything near the roadway. You can use the images for pavement management to determine the cracks in your road surfaces, to evaluate your traffic signs, count the driveways entering a public road and inspect the street lights you have to maintain.

Here's an example of a roadway inventory project in Sarasota. Click here or any of the images to get to a life demo of Sarasota's online ArcGIS implementation and try out the TM button.

Axis Maps is making what they call Typographic Maps. The street names are used to create the line work on the map. The resulting map is very visually appealing. Be interesting to see if esri has any plug-ins to make this happen in a GIS.

A few weeks ago we got our hands on an exciting, new field data collection system that integrates Google Maps with GPS in a laptop (in real time). It is called the OnRoads™ Roadway Data Collector (RDC for short) and was developed by ITIS Corporation of Fresno, CA.

Here's what we really love about the RDC and why we plan to offer it as part of our roadway inventory and pavement inspection services. The RDC runs on a standard laptop in a vehicle, it's connected to a GPS receiver, and it stays connected to the Internet with a wireless modem. This means that you can display Google maps combined with your own GIS data in real time, while you are driving along the highway.

This screenshot shows the RDC running with 2 map windows open - one as an overview on the left, the other zoomed in for details. On the bottom you can see the DMI display which shows an speedometer and the mileage traveled from a user defined starting point.

The RDC software lets you collect point and linear data, for infrastructure or pavement management, as you drive along the road and displays your results on top of live Google Maps. Despite the wireless internet connection, the software is very efficient. We did not notice any significant delays even when we displayed Google's satellite images traveling 65 mph.

The RDC application was developed for highway departments for roadway inventory, gas tax mapping and HPMS reporting. However, we see many uses in asset management, especially when it comes to the field verification to verify infrastructure data collected with our ON-SIGHT™ system.

When we tested the RDC, we liked that:

• You can track your location in real time on top of Google Maps with a GPS receiver of your choice
• You can inventory features in real time and display their locations on top of Google Maps or your existing GIS
• You can run the RDC in DMI mode (distance measurement instrument), if you are using a linear reference system, as it calculates accurate mileage while you are driving along the road, making separate DMI instruments obsolete
• The RDC supports external keyboards for data entry and a second, dash-mounted display, so the driver can watch mileage or GPS status, while the navigator enters data.

Let us know, if this device could be useful for you. Please leave a comment or a question in the box below!

We'd be glad to schedule an online demo for you and your department - just email or call Howard at (614) 886-4100 to schedule a time!