#23 - Helen Fricker

Dr. Helen Fricker is a Professor of Geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, one of the world's most important centers for global earth science research and education. Prior to her current role, Dr. Fricker was a science team member for NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat); she is currently the science team lead for ICESat-2, and Principle Investigator (PI) for NASA's Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer (EDGE) mission. In this episode, we pick Helen’s brain about spaceborne lidar altimetry missions, some of the amazing science and research projects they support, and what’s over the horizon from a development perspective.

Angus Pacala is CEO and co-founder of Ouster, a major lidar supplier based in San Francisco. The company made headlines in 2023 when it merged with arch-competitor Velodyne. Speaking from the company’s offices in Edinburgh, Scotland (home of Sense Photonics, an Ouster acquisition in 2021), Angus addresses the company’s technical developments and the status of its forthcoming L4 and Chronos solid-state components and their likely effect on the product portfolio. He explains how the company addresses the four verticals into which it has divided the market and where UAV-lidar fits in. Ouster’s software portfolio is covered too. 

Dr. John Adler is a geographer and remote sensing professional with a diverse career in academia, government, and ecological research. He serves as the Lead Airborne Sensor Operator for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) where he conducts airborne surveys across the nation during periods of peak vegetation greenness, contributing to large-scale ecological data collection efforts. In this episode, Austin chats with John about the ins-and-outs of collecting airborne lidar data in concert with RGB + hyperspectral sensors over NEON sites from Alaska to Puerto Rico. They close with a discussion of what the future may hold for NEON data collection and upload. 

In this episode, Stewart speaks with James Rush, Lidar Subject Matter Expert, Allen & Company, about his employer and his personal journey into lidar management. Allen & Company has roots in conventional land surveying, but its offerings today include extensive services in laser scanning of buildings, producing deliverables such as BIMs and digital twins. To this end, it has a subsidiary, Allen3D. James discusses some of the projects on which Allen is working and examines how the specifications are reached in discussion with clients, paying appropriate attention to published standards. He also describes an initiative at Tucker Ranch, near the company’s headquarters in Winter Garden, Florida, in which he arranged for 17 collections of lidar point clouds of a small area, to provide a most unusual reference data set for many purposes.

Dr. Ralph Dubayah is a Distinguished Professor of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the Principal Investigator for NASA’s Global Ecosystems Dynamics Investigation Lidar (GEDI) – a full waveform lidar onboard the International Space Station (ISS). In this episode we hear from Dr. Dubayah about the ins and outs of GEDI as well as an upcoming spaceborne lidar mission that’s under preparation. We wrap up with a discussion of Dr. Dubayah’s dream for airborne laser scanning (ALS) from space!

Josh Novac, Associate Vice President, and Program Manager in the Geospatial, Mapping, and Survey department at Dewberry, talks about how he came to enter the geospatial profession. He discusses the satisfaction and enthusiasm that his 18 years with Dewberry have engendered and explains how the family-owned nature of the business brings special advantages in terms of serving clients. Josh talks about Dewberry’s decision to acquire airborne topobathymetric lidar systems and describes some of the projects that the company is currently tackling. On a more personal note, he talks about his friend and mentor, Dave Maune, whose autobiography, 25¢ Piano Lessons, was published at the end of 2024.

Philippe Simard is CEO of SimActive, the Montreal-based supplier of photogrammetric software, which he founded in 2003 with his brother, Louis, who is CTO. We explore how the company began with a successful Canadian defense procurement and has focused consistently on both ease of use and speed. SimActive’s flagship Correlator3D product has evolved over 22 years and supports imagery acquired by UAVs, aircraft and satellites, with pricing dependent on image size. It is installed in over 100 countries, indicating the company’s steady growth. The brothers’ college degrees are in computer vision, so the podcast touches on this approach to photogrammetry as opposed to the classical one taught in geomatics programs over the years.

In this episode, Dr. Steven Woolven, president of Trimble Applanix, manufacturer of GNSS-aided inertial technologies for mobile mapping and positioning, talks about the foundation of the company and how he was tempted to join shortly after completing his PhD. He describes the rapid growth experienced during early years, the benefits of being acquired by Trimble in 2003, and the impressive number of employees who have remained with the Toronto-area firm for decades. The transformation of the business from a few high-end units per annum to large numbers of modestly prices systems for UAVs and other applications is highlighted, including the recently launched APX RTX product line and the PX-1 for UAV navigation.

NavVis unveiled its new MLX handheld laser scanner for reality capture at INTERGEO in September 2024. The MLX complements the VLX2 and VLX3 wearable systems and answers customer requests for a smaller, more nimble product at a lower price-point. In this episode, NavVis co-founder and CEO Dr. Felix Reinshagen talks about the new product as well as intriguing implications, such as the tipping point at which vast amounts of data from mobile reality capture systems, supported by powerful software, become the norm. He delves into the transition from tripod-based to mobile systems. Felix cut his teeth at McKinsey and provides fascinating insights into how his career took a geospatial turn and how he uses his strong background in computer science, economics and business to guide NavVis skillfully. NavVis is healthy, successful and growing, but the decisions on investment, distribution model, markets, and adoption of new technology retain their fascination.

Mike Zoeller and Adam Mosbrucker play key roles within the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Volcano Hazards Program. Both Mike and Adam rely heavily on the use of lidar and its derivative products to support applied science projects related to the specific volcanology of their respective regions, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) and the Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO), respectively. In this episode, we chat about some of the exciting and novel applications of lidar within their work such as locating landing zones for helicopters and finding ideal placement locations for telemetry and solar power systems for GNSS instrumentation. We also discuss how lidar is utilized to constrain lava flow, develop geophysical models of underlying volcanic mechanics and get a handle on long-term sediment storage and basin yields.