Surveying at the South Pole

Finnegan with the Riegl VZ-1000. (Image courtesy of Adam LeWinter.)

In January, Adam LeWinter and Dave Finnegan, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), traveled to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to conduct a terrestrial lidar/thermal infrared survey of the elevated station as part of a National Science Foundation-funded project.

They used a Riegl VZ-1000 with integrated InfraTec VarioCAM high-definition thermal camera to capture a three-dimensional thermal map of the building, to assess the building envelope for thermal efficiency.

Working in temperatures down to –30° C, CRREL designed a heated thermal jacket to keep both scanner and camera warm.

Riegl lidar on a sled. (Image courtesy of Adam LeWinter.)