presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

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James Hall
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by James Hall »

Hello Daniel,
I have done some in depth testing of Leica P40, P50, C-10, RTC 360, BLK360 and Trimble X7 and SX10 scanners. Our goal is to accurately identify the diameter of cylinders between 12mm and 38mm in size at a range of 15 to 30 Meters.
The best scanner out of the group for our testing was the C-10. (The spec accuracy is no better than the scanners you have tested already) It had the best cross-sectional shape and produced results closet to the caliper measured test object. I regen grew a cylinder in Leica Cyclone core to get a best fit.
There are terrestrial sub millimeter scanners on the market. I have processed the scans from one on a wall deviation analysis. I don’t remember the scanner that was used. This was hired out and a few years back.
Here is a link to scanners that might better suit your needs.

https://laserscanningforum.com/forum/vi ... php?t=8191

James,
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by James Hall »

Leica Absolute Tracker ATS600 meets your spec for Accuracy. Don't know what price they are going for.

https://www.hexagonmi.com/products/lase ... ker-ats600

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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

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The ideal budget would be around € 45,000. I do not know the ATS600 scanner, but my intention is to use the equipment after this work to civil works projects and I do not see the practical application in that field of the ATS600.
I have seen in one of the attached links a team from the Artyco house that can fit in even though it has a high price and I have never heard of it in Spain.
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by smacl »

James Hall wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2021 4:34 pm Hello Daniel,
I have done some in depth testing of Leica P40, P50, C-10, RTC 360, BLK360 and Trimble X7 and SX10 scanners. Our goal is to accurately identify the diameter of cylinders between 12mm and 38mm in size at a range of 15 to 30 Meters.
The best scanner out of the group for our testing was the C-10. (The spec accuracy is no better than the scanners you have tested already) It had the best cross-sectional shape and produced results closet to the caliper measured test object. I regen grew a cylinder in Leica Cyclone core to get a best fit.
There are terrestrial sub millimeter scanners on the market. I have processed the scans from one on a wall deviation analysis. I don’t remember the scanner that was used. This was hired out and a few years back.
Here is a link to scanners that might better suit your needs.

https://laserscanningforum.com/forum/vi ... php?t=8191

James,
Also seen great results from the C10 from a user quite recently, slow and heavy by todays standards but a great piece of kit for all that and some real 2nd hand bargains to be had. The big advantage of using a more modern instrument is the amount of the data that is rapidly collected provides enough redundany for automated circularity analysis, see the first couple of minutes of this video for an example. This is basically cutting a bunch of regular sections through the cylindrical object, doing a full least squares circle fit on each section, removing any outliers and producing a heat map of deviations. You can then do analysis on the fitted centre line for things like verticality and use the sections for volumes. The example is a tunnel, something similar with a tank here. The amount of noise can be a function of the surface of the tank and what was inside it as well as the scanner, e.g. a lot of dust in grain silos. The big advantage of the RTC360 is that it is a lot less cumbersome than the C10 or P40 upside down at the top of a tank or silo. If this wasn't an issue the P40 would be more accurate. Faster scanners also equals more data and being able to work with much thinner slices and hence less lateral noise. Haven't seen other manufacturers data in this environment so can't comment on it.

Sub-millimetre is a big ask and I doubt you'll get that on anything less than a laser tracker, it is also very difficult to test. MS60 will also get you very good results, albeit for a slower and more specialised instrument which may not be a workable solution inside a tank. Cesar Almeida from Leica is a good bloke to talk to about this, having some in-depth recent experiece comparing the tracker to terrestrial scanning. Last time I checked, we were getting <2mm co-circularity on the P40 data. I haven't checked the RTC360 beyond visual checks but the last set of tank data (grain silo) I looked very clean.
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by smacl »

Daniel Marcos wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 7:53 am The ideal budget would be around € 45,000. I do not know the ATS600 scanner, but my intention is to use the equipment after this work to civil works projects and I do not see the practical application in that field of the ATS600.
I have seen in one of the attached links a team from the Artyco house that can fit in even though it has a high price and I have never heard of it in Spain.
At that price, some of the Topcon scanners produce very good results, have a look at the GLS-2000 perhaps. Slower than the RTC360 and not quite as accurate as the P40 but this is reflected in the price and it is still a great piece of kit for the money. I had a look at some GLS2000 data when checking out the GTL1000 when it came out and found it to be very good.
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by Daniel Marcos »

Thank you very much for your advice. I know the GSL2000 and it has serious problems with dark colors .... (albedo), otherwise it is very comfortable to externally orient the scanner with prisms in known coordinate bases since it recognizes the prism, and thus the clouds come out georeferenced. Between a gsl2000 and a c10 which one would you choose?
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by MajorDomo »

Daniel Marcos wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 8:36 pm Thank you very much for your advice. I know the GSL2000 and it has serious problems with dark colors .... (albedo), otherwise it is very comfortable to externally orient the scanner with prisms in known coordinate bases since it recognizes the prism, and thus the clouds come out georeferenced. Between a gsl2000 and a c10 which one would you choose?
The C10 acquires targets onboard too if you want, it also does resection if memory serves me right.
But you always want to finalize the registration on the software, regardless of instrument.
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by smacl »

Daniel Marcos wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 8:36 pm Thank you very much for your advice. I know the GSL2000 and it has serious problems with dark colors .... (albedo), otherwise it is very comfortable to externally orient the scanner with prisms in known coordinate bases since it recognizes the prism, and thus the clouds come out georeferenced. Between a gsl2000 and a c10 which one would you choose?
Interesting, I wasn't aware of the GLS2000 issue with dark colours. I'll check the data I've got here when I get a chance again as it includes a large amount of black asphalt road. Problem with the C10 is that it is quite an old instrument now and don't think it has been in production for some time. Before getting one, I'd check whether your local Leica dealer can service it or it could end up being junk quite quickly. That said, there are some real bargains to be had 2nd hand so it could be a very cost effective option. The GLS2000 is going to be lighter and faster, and also possibly easier and cheaper to service given it is still in production. Being able pick up prisms is a big advantage in a civil engineering and survey context but may not add much value for tank measurement.
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by Phill »

Just my to cents here

Tank calibration used to be done with long steel bands tapes wrapped around the outside of the tanks. If you check the API MPMS this is still one of the methods, along with using a theodolite and "electro distance ranging" techniques, so while we have been using laser scanners for tank calibration almost since they came out, the API have not yet decided to recognize this method, and will still accept strapping as a valid technique.

What you need to keep in mind with the precision you are seeing is its normally +/-3mm, sometimes more sometimes less, but you will have hundreds of measurements round a tank to use for your measurement. You might have one that 3mm out but points right next to it might be right or 3mm in. Taking the average of all those points should give you a pretty good result. Its a more measurements = better precision kind of deal.

I'd recommend a P40 or C10 (from memory the RTC360 is good up close but goes a bit fuzzy at distance) as the benchmark of good civil grade scanners, and you wont find many in that category that have much better precision. The C10 with its visible green laser seems to be very precise on most materials even when damp or semi transparent (eg foam, plastic, marble). The P40 on solid objects is almost twice a precise as the C10 as shown below.

This is a 1m piece of a 0.2m diameter cylinder scanned at 25m from a C10 and a P40 where I happened to have them both on one job. You can see the difference in fuzziness, but when I fit a cylinder to the cloud I get 1mm standard deviation on the P40 and 2mm standard deviation on the C10.
P40.jpg
P40 at ~25m background grid spacing is 10mm
C10.jpg
C10 at ~25m background grid spacing is 10mm

Hope this is of some help

Cheers

Phill
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Re: presentation and doubt about the appropriate scanner for tanks

Post by Daniel Marcos »

Thank you very much for your input!. In my specific case I intend to take the current state of the tank (from the inside since it is not possible from the outside because some tanks are together), that is, with their possible deformations, and cubed that reality. I have seen that many types of software can idealize the shape of the tank and fit an ideal cylinder, but my goal is to certify the current situation of the tank, which in many cases is not ideal. Thanks for the appreciation between the P40 and the C10, I can get a second-hand C10 for about € 15,000 while a second-hand P40 is for € 35,000, the difference is considerable but I have to assess its use in future work to be done
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