Camera innovation:

A new camera innovation from Leica that can combines image capture with 3D laser mapping, is being used for the first time to capture UK cities. 

Bluesky International has used the Leica CityMapper, the world’s first hybrid airborne sensor combining vertical and oblique imagery with 3D laser scanning, to capture major cities throughout the UK.

It is the first time this technology has been used commercially in the UK to this level. The captured city data is currently available to Bluesky and Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon, it constituent components of vertical orthorectified aerial imagery, oblique photographs and LiDAR point cloud data. Plans are in place to also include the imagery in Hexagon’s HxGN Content Program in the near future. 

Using the CityMapper, Bluesky has mapped parts of London, Manchester and Birmingham as well as Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Norwich, Nottingham and Oxford. It intends to increase its coverage by capturing additional towns and cities across the UK and Ireland in 2019.

 “The combination of multiple survey grade cameras and LiDAR enables, for the first time, the simultaneous capture of data for the automatic creation of highly accurate and detailed citywide 3D models, with one sensor,” said Rachel Tidmarsh, managing director of Bluesky.