Efficiency Scantra works solely on redundantly captured regions within acquired scans and hence does not require artificial targets in the scene. By this, the time on site is significantly reduced since the effort to distribute, document and survey targets is obsolete. In addition, Scantra is capable to handle targets that are for instance used to transform a registered point cloud into a superior coordinate system. A tedious task in processing large projects is to identify blunders that occurred during registration. For this sake, Scantra offers an efficient blunder detection algorithm that allows localising the corresponding observations.

Precision In contrast to cloud-to-cloud approaches, such as the iterative closest-point algorithm (ICP), Scantra establishes plane-to-plane correspondences. This approach notably reduces effects provoked by the sampling uncertainty. In addition, the error budget notably enhances since adjusted plane parameters are far more precise than single points.

Performance Scantra uses a high-performance database system that allows handling data even from several thousand scans. By using plane parameters instead of points the data volume drastically decreases: a project with 368 scans requires 19.86 GB (binary files) of storage while the Scantra database only occupies 265 MB of memory. This capability allows to process very large projects with off-the-shelf hardware.

Transparency Quality assurance (QA) is a vital task in every project and equally important for your own organisation as well as your customer. The final step of every Scantra project is a block adjustment that considers the information from all stations and yields in an optimal solution – independent to any calculation sequence. Scantra provides established and transparent quality measures that are well known from adjustment calculus and form a sound base for your QA deliverables. Apart from detailed numerical reports based on the adjustment a graphical user interface supports the user in interpreting the outcome.

The true capability of every software shows when it is used within practical projects. This section features selected case studies by some of our customers and co-operation partners.

• Zoller + Fröhlich, Wangen, Germany: Efficient documentation of a castle
• Z&M 3D WELT: Plane-based registration of several thousand laser scans on standard hardware
• 3D-Welt: Mapping an Operational Medical Clinic in 3D with ~13,000 scans