Baker's Dozen: 13 Laws of Mobile LiDAR

A little over a month ago, our Ridgeland office hosted a visit by Baker's CEO, Brad Mallory.  During a presentation of projects our Transportation group was working on throughout Mississippi, it was quickly observed that several of the slides had 13 projects listed - a Baker's dozen.

From that meeting, an idea was born to develop "Baker's Dozen: 13 Laws of Mobile LiDAR."  These Laws were developed after much thought and consideration.  In coming posts, I will explain each of the Laws in detail providing further explanation.  

Without further ado, I unveil the Baker's Dozen: 13 Laws of Mobile LiDAR (also currently being chiseled on a slab of granite):

1. Too much is better than not enough.
2. Sometimes more is just more, not better.
3. Hard drives are cheap, time isn’t.
4. Consistency counts; stop guessing.
5. When someone wants “full planimetrics,” they really don’t.
6. The stated laser range is X’, but the lasers are only capturing data to Y’; and Y is definitely less than X, yet nobody can tell you what Y is…
7. The data you capture is only as good as the applied control.
8. Today’s best practices will be tomorrow’s old habits.
9. Field vs. office time ratios are pipe dreams.
10. Mobile LiDAR systems are not created equal, and neither are the operations behind them.
11. Off-the-shelf processing software will only do 50% of what you need it to do.
12. When the system encounters issues, take a breath and reboot.
13. Mobile LiDAR is not all fun and games, but it does feel like it some days.  

Feel free to let me know what you think.  Perhaps we can have a committee gathered to debate them or formalize some agreement.

Cheers!
Stephen