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Articles by Sarah Roe
Geospatial Skills Gap 2026: AI Adoption Is Outpacing Hiring
The geospatial skills gap is widening, according to a new report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) released this month, which finds surveying firms short on skilled people and unprepared for AI. It is the latest in a run of 2026 workforce studies that point the same way: geospatial teams are adopting AI quickly, but hiring is not keeping up, and one industry survey names lidar processing among the skills in shortest supply.
Put Your Mapping Skills to Work for Good This GIS Day 2026
Mapping for Good is a virtual event where participants contribute together to a Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) project, building maps that help disaster response and community development teams reach the people who need them most. The event runs from November 16 through 19, and you can take part anytime, from anywhere, on your own schedule.
SAM Acquires 3-GIS and SSP Innovations, Expanding Into GIS Consulting and AI-Enabled Software
SAM acquires 3-GIS and SSP Innovations, adding utility GIS consulting and enterprise network software to a business built on land and aerial surveying, lidar, and inspection. The Austin, Texas-based company announced the deal on November 5, 2026. The announcement did not include financial terms.
Mach9 Expands Its AI CAD Platform to Aerial Lidar and Photogrammetry
Mach9 has added support for aerial lidar and photogrammetry data to its AI CAD software, extending the platform beyond the mobile and terrestrial scanning it was built around. Survey and geospatial teams can now upload point clouds captured by drones, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft and get an AI-generated first draft of their deliverables within hours. An aerial TIN surface built in Mach9.
Frontier Precision to Join the Minnesota GIS Community for MN GIS Day Celebration
MN GIS Day 2026 is coming to Minneapolis on Thursday, November 19, and Frontier Precision will be there with the Minnesota geospatial community. Frontier Precision is heading to Minneapolis to celebrate MN GIS Day with fellow geospatial professionals. The evening is a chance for surveyors, mappers, GIS analysts, and technology providers across Minnesota to connect, trade ideas, and enjoy some friendly competition.
Hesai Holds 62% of Global Robotaxi Lidar Market, Yole Group Reports
As robotaxis move from pilot programs toward commercial scale, one lidar supplier is capturing most of the market. According to Yole Group’s Robotaxi 2026 report, Hesai Technology held a 62% share of the $65 million global robotaxi lidar market in 2025, up from 61% in Yole’s previous edition. Hesai held 62% of the $65 million robotaxi lidar market in 2025.
Lidar for Distribution Vegetation Management: How Utilities Prioritize Tree Risk
Trees remain one of the leading causes of power outages on distribution networks, and in a warming, wildfire-prone climate they are also one of the biggest liability risks an electric utility carries. For decades, the answer has been boots on the ground: arborists walking line after line, looking up, and making judgment calls span by span. That expertise isn’t going anywhere.
$34M Series A Funding Fuels Mach9 AI CAD for Lidar Scans
Capturing the physical world has never been faster. A mobile mapping vehicle can scan miles of roadway in a single day. Turning that point cloud into an engineering drawing, however, is still slow, manual work, and it has become one of the biggest bottlenecks in infrastructure projects. Mach9, the San Francisco company building AI CAD software for civil engineering, wants to close that gap.
Automotive Lidar: A Complete Guide
Automotive lidar is a laser-based sensor that gives cars a precise 3D picture of the road around them. It measures distance to other vehicles, pedestrians, and obstacles in any light, and it is now moving from test fleets into mass-market vehicles as prices fall to a few hundred dollars. This guide covers how automotive lidar works, the main types, how it compares with cameras and radar, its history, cost, the companies that make it, and the policy questions shaping the market.
Top Automotive Lidar Companies: Who Makes the Sensors
Four Chinese companies, Hesai, RoboSense, Huawei, and Seyond, controlled 89% of the global automotive lidar market in 2024, according to market research firm Yole Group. Outside China, Valeo, Innoviz, Ouster, and Aeva are the main automotive lidar companies, while U.S. supplier Luminar went bankrupt in 2025.
$75,000 to $200: How Automotive Lidar Cost Fell
Automotive lidar cost has fallen from about $75,000 per sensor in 2007 to roughly $200 for high-volume automotive units today. That drop is what turned lidar from a research tool on test vehicles into a part carmakers can build into mass-market models. For an overview of how the technology works, see [Automotive Lidar: A Complete Guide]. In the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, five of the six teams that finished used lidar, and most of them used Velodyne’s HDL-64E. That sensor cost around $75,000.
Lidar vs. Cameras: Inside the Tesla and Waymo Debate
Lidar vs. cameras is the biggest argument in self-driving technology: do cars need lidar at all? Tesla says cameras and artificial intelligence are enough. Waymo, which runs the largest driverless robotaxi service, says lidar, radar, and cameras together are needed for safe driving at scale. Falling automotive lidar cost is changing the terms of that debate. For background, see [Automotive Lidar: A Complete Guide]. Lidar vs.
How Automotive Lidar Works: Lasers, Beam Scanning, Detectors and Range
How automotive lidar works is simple at its core: the sensor fires laser light at the road scene and times how long it takes to bounce back. Each return becomes one point in a 3D point cloud, and a car’s computer uses millions of those points per second to detect and track vehicles, pedestrians, and obstacles. For an overview of the whole field, see [Automotive Lidar: A Complete Guide].
Rivian Lidar Cost: Now a Few Hundred Dollars
Rivian will put lidar on its R2 SUV for employees before the end of 2026, with customer vehicles following in 2027. Photo courtesy of Rivian The company also says the sensor now costs it only “a few hundred dollars,” a sharp drop from what automotive lidar cost just a few years ago. Rivian VP of Investor Relations Chip Newcom laid out the timeline on September 29 at Evercore ISI’s ADAS, AV & AI Forum in New York, as reported by Electrek.
NV5 Geo Sessions: Data Into Action
NV5 Geo Sessions 2026 is built around a question a lot of geospatial teams are quietly stuck on: how do you turn all this data into something you actually act on? NV5 has announced Geo Sessions 2026, a virtual thought-leadership event focused on turning geospatial data into operational decisions rather than simply collecting more of it.
Kīlauea Tephra Cone Mapped with Lidar
The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has released a new map charting the cumulative thickness of tephra erupted at Kīlauea’s summit, built from a helicopter lidar survey flown July 29, 2026. The map, published September 3, shows the tephra cone on the western rim of Halemaʻumaʻu crater has reached 1,186 meters (3,891 feet) above sea level — a cumulative thickness of 47 meters (154 feet) measured against pre-eruption ground level.
Sentinel-2 Land Cover Mapping in Zimbabwe
By Gerald Mvumi, Geospatial Engineer, Zimbabwe Every day, satellites quietly sweep across the Earth’s surface, capturing terabytes of imagery that most people will never see. The real value of Earth Observation (EO) has never been the pixels themselves; it is what happens when those pixels are translated into intelligence that a planner, a conservationist, or a minister can actually act on.
Geo Week Opens Event Scholarship Applications
The GEO Empower scholarship program is cornerstone to bridging workforce gap Salt Lake City, UT — August 25, 2026 — Organizers of Geo Week announced that the application period is now open for the GEO Empower Event Scholarship, an initiative dedicated to empowering university students passionate about utilizing geospatial, surveying, mapping, and 3D technology for social and environmental good.
Point Cloud to TIN: Mach9 Adds Surface Workflows
Point cloud to TIN workflows are essential for transforming lidar data into terrain models used in surveying and civil engineering. Mach9’s latest release brings surface generation, editing, quality assurance, and LandXML export into a single workflow, reducing software handoffs and helping teams move more efficiently from point cloud to engineering-ready deliverables.
Lidar Reveals Silk Road City in Uzbekistan
Lidar mapping has revealed the true extent of one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Central Asia in recent years. Using high-resolution drone-based lidar, researchers uncovered the layout of a sprawling medieval city hidden within the mountains of southeastern Uzbekistan. The findings challenge long-held assumptions about where major Silk Road settlements could exist and demonstrate how modern remote sensing continues to transform archaeological research.
FAA EASA BVLOS Keynote for Commercial UAV Expo
Commercial UAV Expo Announces Second Keynote: Two Skies, One Conversation FAA EASA BVLOS regulation will take center stage at Commercial UAV Expo 2026 as leaders from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) join a keynote discussion on the future of beyond visual line of sight drone operations. The session will compare regulatory approaches, risk-based frameworks, and the path toward routine BVLOS flights.
Lidar Supports Vivid Sydney Projection Mapping
For Vivid Sydney’s Creative Technology After Dark, lidar scanning was used to create accurate digital replicas of selected sites, supporting design, testing, and production planning for projection installations. Ahead of Vivid Sydney 2026, Australian creative technology company TDC – Technical Direction Company rescanned Garrison Church and the Argyle Cut using lidar technology, creating highly accurate digital replicas of the sites.
Preserving an Icon: Liberty Bell Digital Twin
The Liberty Bell Digital Twin Project recently created the first free, high-resolution public digital twin of one of America’s most iconic historical artifacts. Researchers from the VAR Lab at Penn State Behrend recently completed a non-invasive field deployment to create the first free, high-resolution public digital twin of the Liberty Bell.
World Cup Technology: Digital Twins and Smart Balls
FIFA’s latest World Cup technology combines high-resolution 3D body scans, sensor-equipped match balls, and real-time tracking systems to create digital twins of every player competing in the tournament. The technology behind modern soccer officiating has evolved far beyond traditional video replay.
Delhi Digital Twin for Tax and Asset Management
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi is using drones, GIS, and digital twin technology to identify unassessed properties while creating a comprehensive digital inventory of city assets. Delhi aerial photo The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has launched a pilot initiative that uses drones, GIS, and digital twin technology to identify unassessed and under-assessed properties across India’s capital city.
Commercial UAV Expo 2026 Announces Conference Program
Under the theme “Actionable Insights”, more than 50 sessions will deliver real-world strategies that pilots, operators, surveyors, service providers, and enterprise drone program leaders can put to work immediately. Las Vegas, NV, USA — May 20, 2026 — Commercial UAV Expo, the world’s leading commercial drone trade show and conference, announced the conference program for its 2026 event.
Webinar: LGSx to Deliverable – Leica + Mach9
Reality capture workflows are evolving rapidly, but one of the biggest challenges facing geospatial professionals remains the gap between mobile mapping data collection and engineering-ready deliverables. A new webinar from Leica Geosystems and Mach9 will demonstrate how integrated workflows are helping teams move from capture to production faster and with fewer processing bottlenecks.
How Flyover Zone Rebuilds 3D Ancient Worlds
Some technologies capture the world as it is. Others attempt something far more difficult—rebuilding what has been lost. In today’s geospatial landscape, technologies like lidar dominate the conversation around how we document the world. But what happens when the world you want to explore no longer exists? That’s the challenge tackled by Flyover Zone—a company focused not on capturing present-day reality, but on reconstructing the past.
Compact Lidar and Operational 3D Sensing Future
Recent research from MIT News exploring advances in optical phased arrays and silicon photonics points toward a future where lidar systems become smaller, more durable, and easier to deploy across everyday environments.
Webinar: Scan-First Digital Twins for Operations
Digital twins are often positioned as visualization tools, but in practice, many organizations struggle to translate 3D capture into operational value. The webinar session explores how GMB, a leader in water infrastructure and wastewater treatment systems, improves asset visibility, reduces downtime, and enables infrastructure teams to move from passive visualization to active operational decision-making.
Stitch3D Powers Amazon Archaeology Data Sharing
Stitch3D is a browser-based platform for sharing and visualizing 3D geospatial and lidar data. Terra Incognita, an expedition-focused archaeological research group, uses it to the explore and communicate archaeological discoveries around the world. Deep beneath the Amazon rainforest canopy, massive geometric earthworks are being revealed through lidar archaeology in the Amazon—uncovering evidence of ancient civilizations long hidden from view.
Inside Acoustic Drone Detection with David Hall
Lidar News speaks with inventor and CEO David Hall about Hall Lidar’s recent announcement of its AI-based acoustic drone detection system. Hall Lidar is a U.S.-based developer of advanced sensing and counter-UAS technologies. The UDL-64 (Ultimate Drone Listener) system is designed to deliver real-time 3D situational awareness in complex operational environments through acoustic sensing.
Hall Lidar Reveals Acoustic Drone Detection
AI-powered platform delivers covert, precise drone detection, using the most advanced acoustic, radar, manufactured in the United States Hall Lidar Inc, a U.S.-based developer of advanced sensing and counter-UAS technologies, today announced the launch of its first-generation acoustic drone detection system.
Vicki Lukas on 3DEP and the Future of Mapping
A 35-year career, the completion of 3DEP, and what comes next for the geospatial community. After more than three decades with the U.S. Geological Survey, Vicki Lukas helped shape one of the most ambitious geospatial initiatives in the world—the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP). 3DEP is a national initiative led by the U.S. Geological Survey to systematically collect high-resolution lidar data to create consistent, detailed elevation models of the United States.
Webinar on Thermal Scanning & Reality Capture
Reality capture is evolving—and it’s no longer just about static as-built documentation. Discover how thermal scanning is transforming the field into a dynamic, predictive monitoring tool. By combining high-resolution laser scanning with thermal intelligence, teams can now visualize asset conditions in full 3D context, detect anomalies earlier, and make smarter, proactive maintenance decisions.
Will This Merger Advance Geospatial Workflows?
A recent merger in the geospatial software space points to a growing industry focus on connecting field data collection with office-based analysis. The combination of Blue Marble Geographics and Avenza Systems reflects a broader movement toward unified workflows that span lidar processing, coordinate transformation, and mobile mapping. The integration of desktop and mobile geospatial tools has long been a challenge for professionals working across surveying, mapping, and infrastructure projects.
Webinar: Asset Visibility+Lifecycle Management
As reality capture continues to evolve, one of the biggest challenges facing industrial teams is not collecting data—but making it usable across the full asset lifecycle. An upcoming webinar with Cintoo and Flyability brings together two technologies addressing this challenge from both ends of the workflow: data capture and data collaboration.
Smart Waste Management: NV5 TrashView
Roanoke County, VA, in collaboration with NV5, is pioneering a data-driven approach to waste management by integrating real-time tracking, predictive analytics, and sensor-based monitoring into trash collection operations. Using Esri ArcGIS Experience Builder (ExB) Developer Edition, the County has developed TrashView, an innovative application that enhances operational efficiency, improves fleet management, and provides residents with greater transparency about waste collection services.
Topcon Handheld Scanning System Launches
LIVERMORE, Calif. — February 16, 2026 — Topcon Positioning Systems has introduced the CR-S1, a handheld scanning system that combines LiDAR, panoramic cameras, visual SLAM cameras, and a GNSS antenna in a single device. The CR-S1 utilizes Topcon’s Collage mass-data software ecosystem central to a connected workflow. The CR-S1 expands the company’s Capture Reality portfolio as a higher‑performance option alongside the CR‑S2.
Cintoo 360 Edition brings Ricoh 360 data into 3D workflows
New solution converts 360 video walkthroughs into 3D data to accelerate field-to-cloud visualization and decision-making MIAMI / SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS – February 17, 2026: Launching today,Cintoo’s 360 Edition enables users to capture, process and navigate Ricoh 360 data as part of their 3D workflows for the first time.
Geo Week Record-Breaking Exhibit Hall
Event Brings Together Thousands of Geospatial Professionals for Unparalleled Collaboration and Industry Advancement DENVER, CO – February 16, 2026 – Geo Week 2026 opens today with the largest exhibit floor in event history, featuring 238 exhibitors from 25 countries, and is expected to draw thousands of geospatial and mapping professionals with registrations surpassing last year’s record attendance of 3,200.
Visit Emesent at Geo Week 2026
Two years in development, Emesent is making a major product announcement at Geo Week in Denver starting February 16. Built on extensive feedback from clients and users, detailed study of the market, and backed by ongoing success of Emesent Hovermap, the SLAM-powered autonomous LiDAR mapping system, the latest release represents Emesent’s renewed focus on meeting the needs of surveyors in construction and building engineering.
VISIT NV5 AT GEO WEEK 2026 - Lidar News
Booth Number: 1003 NV5 will be in Denver, CO for Geo Week, February 16-18, and our team is ready to talk all things geospatial! We’re especially excited to demo our latest GeoAI innovations, GeoAgent. GeoAgent interprets intent, orchestrates workflows, validates results, and delivers full geospatial outputs across systems and datatypes—automatically. Now you can work quicker and smarter than ever before. Stop by the NV5 booth #1003 and see how we’re taking geospatial to the next level.
Visit Mach9 at Geo Week 2026
Booth # 1703 Mach9 Digital Surveyor is a CAD application that speeds up extracting features like pavement markings, curbs, and utility assets from LiDAR and imagery data. As you draft, Mach9’s AI suggests geometry and completions, so you can approve or refine linework in real time. Using Digital Surveyor, you can deliver production-ready outputs up to 100 times faster than manual drafting workflows.
Geo Week Examines How AI is Tackling America's Trillion-Dollar Aging Infrastructure Crisis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Conference Sessions Demonstrate AI-Powered Solutions for Predictive Maintenance, Automated Asset Management, and Real-Time Infrastructure Monitoring DENVER, CO – February 11, 2026 – As America grapples with aging infrastructure and a $1 trillion modernization challenge, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a critical tool for managing transportation networks, utilities, and critical infrastructure assets at unprecedented scale.
Autonomous UAV Collision Detection
Autonomous UAV Collision Detection Mining is an industry made up of extremes. Hazardous physical environments, risky working conditions, cavernous depths and high reward. In 2024, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) reported 42 worker deaths, an increase from previous years.
Orthos + Rasters: Viewing and Sharing Made Simple
Orthos + Rasters: Viewing and Sharing Made Simple Raster data powers some of the most important insights we have about the world—so why is it still so hard to share online? From elevation models and land-cover classifications to temperature maps and surface analysis, raster data sits at the heart of modern geospatial work.
MAPPS 2026 Excellence Awards - NV5
Lidar News congratulates NV5 on receiving three Geospatial Excellence Awards at the 2026 MAPPS Conference, recognizing the firm’s statewide oblique imagery work for the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s KY From Above program. NV5 earned the Grand Award, Data Acquisition & Processing Award, and Member’s Choice Award for the project.
Geospatial Data - Who Owns Yours?
In the digital era of transportation infrastructure, data is as foundational as concrete and steel. Yet, a critical issue often lurks in the fine print: not all geospatial service companies allow their clients to own the data collected on their behalf. For transportation agencies and project owners, this can impede the future of their assets, operations, and budgets. Many geospatial service providers retain ownership of the data they collect, even when the client funds the acquisition.
Work continues to stabilise bridge and reopen Padiham Greenway
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