
Before LiDAR: Early Aerial Mapmaking
The first maps on record that took advantage of an aerial perspective were sketched from the deck of a hot air balloon under the auspices of the Civil War’s Union Army Balloon Corps. Aerial reconnaissance exercises took place regularly during the American Civil War and creating a rough map was strategically key. The first methods...

A Peek at the High-Tech Playbook: Lessons from Software Giants on Creating a Unique Work Space
The first maps on record that took advantage of an aerial perspective were sketched from the deck of a hot air balloon under the auspices of the Civil War’s Union Army Balloon Corps. Aerial reconnaissance exercises took place regularly during the American Civil War and creating a rough map was strategically key. The first methods...

The Team that Could
When it comes to managing a company, we have come a long way. Thankfully, employees are no longer just cogs in the machinery of a business. In Charles Dicken’s satirical book, Hard Times, published in 1854, factory workers were referred to as “hands.” Nothing more: just hands. Thankfully, today the employee is viewed as much...

LiDAR Makes Waves in Engineering
Out with human surveying teams slogging across a project site to map a floodplain and in with slick UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle or drone) performing photogrammetry and collecting millions of elevation points in a matter of minutes. With the growing sophistication and cost-efficiencies of UAVs, the technologies of photogrammetry...

Hail to an Engineer Who Did It All
Legend has it that on January 12, 1828 during the construction of the Thames Tunnel in London, England, everything was fine—until it wasn’t. When the water started coming in there was little possibility for escape. This was the first project in the world to attempt to tunnel under a navigable waterway and it was a...

At Work with the Intrapreneur
I came of age in the 1970s with the understanding that once I finished school I would, much like my dad and grandfather, work fairly regular hours at the same job, performing more or less the same duties, for the next 40 years until I retired. At that time, companies were managed according to set...