Recently, Leica has made a variety of changes to their HDS software. Let’s take a few minutes to explain what some of the changes and how they might affect your HDS workflow.
What kind of changes? Well some of the software is no longer going to be sold moving forward. Other licenses have simply been discontinued all together. How do we make heads or tails of these changes without spending a ton of time researching online? IMAGINiT is here to help.
Beginning with the software that has been around the longest, Cyclone Register CORE. If you own this product and are receiving notice that your subscription is due, you may have noticed the subscription renewal shows the product Cyclone Register 360 Plus. Why is this? Leica has decided to move forward to the future rather than try to fix the past. This means they are no longer selling the Register CORE product. Wait! Before you begin to worry or get upset, that doesn’t mean your license is gone and you can’t use the product. So, what do you do if you own this product right now? You will get the new Cyclone Register 360 Plus software to get started using and learning the while still having access to the older Cyclone Register CORE product at no extra charge. If you own the other modules (Cyclone Model, Cyclone Survey), you can continue to use those as well. We haven’t heard when Register CORE or any of the other products will go away for good, but we have seen some of the features already been added to other Leica software. As an example, the Virtual Surveyor command that was part of Cyclone Survey has already been added to Cyclone 3DR. If Register CORE is part of your everyday workflow, you might look at moving over to Register 360 Plus before CORE isn’t available anymore.
Historically speaking, Leica’s workflow has encouraged the user to go from their sensor to Cyclone Register 360 and then use their Publisher license to create either an LGS or RCP file. With the new licensing, this is no longer the case. The Cyclone Publisher license has been discontinued and is now included in the Cyclone Register 360 Plus license. This means an LGS or RCP file can be published from Cyclone Register 360 Plus. When I first read about this, I thought it was about time and that is the way it should have always been. Now there are some features that we need to discuss. What about being able to incorporate a model into our LGS or Cyclone Enterprise data. That used to require a Cyclone Publisher Pro license. What happened to that? Well, Cyclone Publisher Pro has now been rebranded into Cyclone Workflow. Understandably, Leica was not about to just give that fantastic technology away for free. Cyclone Workflow allows us to add the following features on top of the built in LGS features.
• LAS file creation
• Pano images as EXR
• WayPoint pano images as EXR & JPG
• Supports models in TruView
• Supports TruView VR Viewing
• Classifications
Finally, Register 360 Plus has been updated with several new commands. The most notable would be the ability to classify point cloud data as it is imported. OK, so maybe you are new to the world of point clouds, and you aren’t sure what classifying a point cloud means. Classifying a point cloud means the software is analyzing the point cloud to determine specific types of objects and what they might be in a certain environment. Still confused?? Think of the inside of an office building and all the items inside. We have walls, floors, doors, windows, furniture etc. Classification breaks all these items out into their own groups or classes. This permits the user to remove unwanted data from their point cloud or simply turn it off to view the data that is wanted with a cleaner look. We also have the option to classify data after the fact if we choose. Another excellent feature revolves around security. Security can be a very important feature for a lot of firms out there. The RTC360 combined with Register 360 Plus has added security features. Now there are caveats, the RTC360 must have firmware version 6 installed to add this feature. We can add a digital signature to our scans, so it is confirmed who scanned that project. Data security can be added selectively to any individual project.
This covers many of the software changes for Leica over the past several months. Should you have more questions or concerns regarding your Leica software, please contact your sales representative and setup a meeting with an RCS Team member.
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