Letter to the Editor
By Roland Mangold

Hi Roland:

I just received the July issue of EOM and read your editorial. Then I read the article on Puget Sound Lidar data.

Terrapoint, mentioned both places, has been a competitor of ours. We recognize their capabilities and the capabilities of their staff. However, some statements at the end of Mr. Harless’ article need some corrections and explanations.

We were one of the unsuccessful companies that bid on the Puget Sound project despite, I must admit, a deep-seated nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. Terrapoint, let’s face it, was selected as the contractor for this project for a ridiculously low price (around $650,000). Our bid for this project (nearly four times their price) was based on our real knowledge of the area. The fact remains that the Pacific Northwest around Seattle is an extremely difficult area for any kind of aerial survey. We know; we have done Lidar work there. The terrain is very hilly, heavily wooded, and contains a large metropolitan area with numerous high buildings, retaining walls, and sub-grade roadways. The region covered by the Puget Sound Lidar Consortium includes five – yes five – airports or airstrips (a traffic controller’s nightmare), and weather conditions change rapidly by the hour. We anticipated that this project (requested to be completed in one year) would be, at a minimum, conducted over two years. A large part of that time would be taken in sitting out bad weather and avoiding other aircraft traffic. We were not alone in our assessment.

Almost all of our colleagues in the industry gasped at Terrapoint’s pricing and wondered if the company would be around long enough to complete the job. Our collective impression was, indeed, that Terrapoint had somehow made a massive miscalculation. The only thought we could entertain was that they had retained rights to the data. They hadn’t.

On that topic, we looked at the business case ourselves but, considering the number of partners in the consortium, we decided there was absolutely no way any of these data could be profitably retained by a contractor for sale on a license basis; most of the possible major users interested in the data were already part of the consortium. No company can make money from collecting so much data for the occasional sale to a developer of a square mile here, half a square mile there. While the consortium claims that they have tremendous interest in their data, which is not disputed, this is because the data are free.

For the record: As of Spring 2002, the last Lidar data were still being acquired by Terrapoint using two aircraft, three years after the contract was let! This indicates that, in fact, they probably got into this contract without either really knowing, or simply ignoring what the local conditions were. This would hardly seem to qualify them as having the necessary experience to work in [such] a challenging area. The fact that this all happened, and the fact that Terrapoint was recently unloaded by a disgruntled TransAmerica Corp., tells something of their problems.

Further, Mr. Harless is not quite correct in stating that Terrapoint developed its own system. Terrapoint acquired NASA-developed HARC technology and subsequently modified it. Terrapoint undoubtedly developed its own software, as almost every Lidar provider in the world has done. This does not make them unique. Nonetheless, developing an in-house Lidar system is a task wrought with pain and heartache, especially without the backing of a major manufacturer to call in when things don’t go right. While this is technically not a worry for the client, it should raise concerns about back-up systems in the event some major technical or other disaster occurs.

Finally, Mr. Harless states that Terrapoint’s "four returns" from each pulse was an advantage. Despite a load of hype to the contrary, unless you are a research forester measuring biomass density, multiple returns of Lidar pulses are practically worthless. In almost all cases the only important returns are the first return and the last return. The rest of the data are essentially useless to the average client, with the additional returns merely confirming what is already known. I would imagine that all of the companies to bid on this major project had experience in vegetation and building removal. If they didn’t, they would have been foolish to take on as a first crack a contract really worth well over a couple of million dollars.

This contract has generated a lot of attention, and I commend the consortium wholeheartedly for placing Lidar data on the Web to allow so many people to explore the benefits of these data. However, the project should not be taken as a benchmark, especially for pricing – which many people have unfortunately assumed. Every long-established Lidar operator will tell you that Lidar prices depend upon a wide variety of factors too extensive to go into here.

This brings me back to your editorial. If government agencies (whether national, regional or municipal) are faced with bids that seem ridiculously low compared to others, they should be very concerned about what they are going to get and whether anything can be delivered according to specification. As you have stated before, there are no magic solutions in mapping. Practically no technology is unique to one company, and super-low pricing usually indicates something is wrong – whether intentionally or inadvertently. I have long believed in accepting the second lowest price as the safest way to go. This "second-low" philosophy prevents a company from buying the work for whatever reason and gives the client some greater assurance that the specifications are not being subverted somewhere that they might not notice. Or, as your previous correspondent pointed out, that data are not being produced with copies retained in third-world shops where they might pose a real security threat.

Perhaps I am getting old (somewhat true) but, over the years, I have learned the following. When I need a tool, if I buy the cheapest available, I will surely end up going out and buying the better tool at a later date. But we all know this, so why would we expect our governments to do anything differently? Value for money is better than lowest cost.

And I don’t mind; you can sign my name to this.

Robert Fowler

Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Lasermap Image Plus/GPR

Hull, Quebec, Canada

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