A competitor to NEA Perth firm Airscope uses drones to map...

A competitor to NEA



Perth firm Airscope uses drones to map Cooper Basin installations


Airscope uses the Intel Falcon 8+ drone to capture highly accurate images used to create 3D models.

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A Perth company is using drones to 3D-map entire installations in northwest Australia to an amazing accuracy within 2.5mm.

Airscope, an inspections and asset visualisation company, then builds high-resolution 3D models from 30 megapixel images taken by the drones.

The resulting models are used for inspections, for updating older CAD (computer-aided design) files of structures, and for enhancing the clients’ personalised Google Maps.

The Intel Falcon 8+ drones are being used in the Cooper basin, in the North West Shelf of Australia.
Airscope director Chris Leslie told The Australian the 3D models brought the field into the boardroom for effective asset management.

“We create digital twins of clients’ assets by taking hundreds of thousands of photos and laser scans. We collect huge amounts of data, combine it all together and replicate their assets in a digital models.
“So you now have key decision makers sitting in capital cities navigating around their assets being able to make important decisions.”

He said oil and gas mining clients spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year putting people into the desert to look at these facilities.

“What makes this so innovative is that the large amount of data we’re capturing can ultimately rebuild a facility. We’re ultimately doing every building, every piping rack, under the sheds, we’re doing everything. It’s a better way to manage large-scale infrastructure.”

He said half the managers he spoke to had never visited their facilities. “Yet they’re expected to make multimillion-dollar decisions on whether to change or disband a section of pipes.”

He said the technology was a huge step up from taking aerial photos as the digital data had so many other uses. A company’s databases could be linked to the model with GPS references, and added to the firm’s Google Maps.

“You can measure distances between objects on the model, such as distances, measurements and circumference of pipes, put the data in CAD software and upgrade compliance in a more efficient manner.
“You can pretty much run your whole business with the 3D model and send people into the field to get very dedicated information.

“All our measurements are within 2.5mm because of the laser scanning that we do,” Mr Leslie said. “We shoot really, really accurately. We can see every bolt on the site in 3D.”

He said while drones captured images from above, teams included a photographer who capture images on the ground and under structures. All images on the ground could be tied to the drone’s images.

He said each team used a 2.8kg Intel drone. Each two-week session captured 100,000 photos and 1000 laser scans, which equated to 10 terabytes of data per fortnight.

The company had developed its own software for creating the models.