Slashdot Mirror
Mapping Ground Zero with Lasers
securitas writes: "Amazing how the WTC disaster has shone a light on technology (pun intended). LIDAR (Light Detecting and Ranging) is the optical equivalent of RADAR. It's being used to create hyper-detailed maps of the WTC disaster site from an altitude of 5000 feet to detect shifts in the rubble as well as areas in danger of collapse."
This is really cool, and I hope it helps the rescue effort a lot. One of my friends told me that they were implementing some form of sonar to test for structural stability and whatnot...does anyone know anything about that? I couldn't find it on any news page, so I think my friend might have been mistaken. I think this would probably work better than sonar, and I really hope it is helpful.
The anti-salmon
..but does anyone know what happended with the attempt to dig out the below-ground areas under WTC?
How do they monitor the site constatly from 5000 feet? is there a plane constantly circling around the site or is it done by a sort of balloon? can't this monitoring be achieved by satellites? Since the Aerican mititary is always showing off with their advanced sateelite monitoring tech it must be feasible to monitor the site from space
".Sig Stealer" was here
http://boston.com/news/packages/underattack/galler ies/dogs/1.htm
So is this being given to handlers so that they're better able to direct the dogs? Or is this being used to determine additional areas that might be safe for humans. It doesn't seem like such a map would be too useful in determining stability.
Nevertheless this is very interesting, mostly with regards to the craters underground. With accurate maps, fatalities amongst rescuers can hopefully be avoided -- an untimed collapse of the rubble is an event well worth avoiding.
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I have to go to work in the "Frozen Zone" today. I'm going to have to see if I can look down on the ground and see what kind of stuff rescuers are working with and now look up in the air to see what is being used also (I bet I can't tell though). Or I suppose I could actually do some work. I fear things will be pretty dusty.
Just in case anyone is interested, LIDAR is actually what 'Laser radar guns' use to track your speed. So if someone ever tells you that they got pulled over because of a Laser gun, tell them it was LIDAR they should blame.
Try telling that to a cop... "No officer, its LIDAR! Really!"
jason
Not only that, but the vast quantities of fresh blood being sent to New York may trigger a vampire epidemic. I tell you, October in New York will be spooktacular indeed.
--
I like to watch.
they could've made the page work properly
the mouse overs highlight the wrong text for me
and the page is too darn wide to fit on my 1280 screen!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I know Michael got reamed for this yesterday, but this once again is a story that uses an inappropriate introduction... with words like "nifty" and "(pun intended)" to refer to something regarding this tragedy...
I mean, I'm not one to be oversensitive, but come on people... I think that you disrespect the dead and the affected when you use cavalier words while referring to this situation. I only live 5 miles from Ground Zero and I saw the towers collapse with my own eyes. This makes me no more or less affected than any other American (save for those who lost a loved one in the disaster), but for a story poster to consistently make the same error in judgement like this obviously shows something about his regard for human life, for American pride, and for the people around him that are deeply affected by this terrible situation.
I ask not that we refrain from bringing it up, as I'm very proud of Slashdot in general for its coverage of this situation. But, to repeat the point from yesterday, there is nothing "nifty" about 6,700 innocent Americans dying in the most horrible way possible at the hands of a few highly irrational people... people whose peers live among us today waiting to give us our next big tragedy, our next week of continuous news coverage, our next spilling of innocent blood.
I mean, I don't want to be too dramatic, but our American flags don't just cheer us up and bring us together... they remind us of our freedom and the horrible things that happened because we insisted on having it. It may be 13 days later, but it's still a horrible thing. Please treat it accordingly.
He's a typical geek. In terms of personality we often are mildly sociopathic. We often don't connect with other people at all. And, unless we have been directly effected by an event, we are detached from it. We often live in our own little worlds, revolving around the latest cool tech. What we see is the coolness, the niftyness. We don't really see the people.
Best Slashdot Co
Seems there was a report about a low flying drone shot down in Afganastan...
HPC for Primates. Read Cluster Monkey
The Taliban (aka Slashdot) has ordered all fundamentalist Linux users to go out and destroy Windows XP. Go to it boys.
Most striking to me is the before and after satelite pictures on the same site. Notice that the before is 180 degrees off the after (they should have aligned them...).
The worst terrorist attacks in recorded history occurred less than two weeks ago and you geeks are talking about a laser mapping system to help with the WTC mapping efforts...er, carry on. My bad.
If you can't even post to Slashdot without being absorbed in morbidity then that surely is a capitulation.
The way to show your respect is to show it in the way the British and Irish do after being subjected to terrorist attacks on their home soil: refuse to be cowed. Refuse to give in - live life as we intend to go on.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
It's NY Times, I was looking forward to ignoring the story because of their free registration.. HARPMF!
Yopu for you?
There is another system that uses lasers in a similar fashion that is used specifically for search and rescue. I'm not too sure how well it would work for this situation though.
Prof. Frink: "Here is an ordinary square."
Cheif Wiggum: "Whoa, whoa. Slow down, egghead!"
"A satellite can't monitor such an area constantly, since Manhatten isn't on the equator."
And goodness knows we've only got one.
Satellite imaging is really the only way to get constant monitoring over an urban area. A mile long tether is inviting disaster (what's to keep planes from flying into it?)
324006
To say that terrorists are responsible for anything affecting slashdot...
The bit of humor he gave was enough to make me smile. and that in it self, will give me a nicer day .
and yes, I live close enough to the WTC, saw it from my home also. Humor might be the best cure for what ill's me.
onepoint
if you see me, smile and say hello.
This is the only post this asshole has that has not been moderated to a 0 or -1. Just a fucking troll.
Oh how I hope the moderation of this to +1 Funny shows up in metamod today!
What's up with the HTML on the map page?
:(
I was about to submit a Mozilla bug for not having a vertical scroll bar, but now I see M$ IE renders the page the same way
Without the scroll bar, I can't view the pics at the bottom of the page, even at 1600x1400 res!
Note to self: Avoid < no resize > tags on my own webpage
LIDAR technology is not soemthing new out of the blue. It has ben used quite a bit before. I saw it once at SIGGRAPH 99 (2 years ago). It's very useful for creating detailed 3D models. Kind of like a range finder, but it sweeps an area to get 3D range data out of it. It has even been used in films like in End of Days and What Dreams May Come. Here are a couple of articles from VFXPro.com
Panavision: Cinema in a New LightPanavision's Panascan LIDAR System Integrates Cinematography
Interesting to see how this technology can be applied for a critical job. Especially when they start diging deeper below the level of the Hudson to detect any shifts.
At the end of this bit of lame-filter-busting-fluff is a link to another representation on CNN, this has 3 views.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/dama ge.map.html
Note that a High speed line would nice to have when viewing this
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Agreed. While I don't live in the USA, the terrorists attacks affected everyone in the whole world with a TV. What many people don't understand is that if you're going to take thing too seriously, you're not going to have a good life. It's usually when people have lost everything or are terminally ill that they finally understand that they are dying. But then it's maybe too late. Many such patients claim that their last years of sickness has actually been their best ones.
Just watch the reactions to this post. I think they are sicker than telling a harmless joke about a disaster. But it's obviously too painful and scary to have introspection for many. It's much more comfortable to just lash out. Often, people get offended because they think this should offend someone else. But that's just way off target, because it's really none of their bussiness. You can't go through life without stepping on other people's toes. That's why we have invented the word "sorry" and the concept of forgiveness.
It's not like people don't tell jokes about what happens in other parts of the world. But of course, that's different.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Zeitgeist type stuff for the 11th.
Krispy Cream is people
Please! Come on! Terrorist attack was horrible but that's no excuse to ruin others' days and flame everybody who dares to say anything other than mourn and weep after lost lives or vow revenge.
Do not assume the role of moral police. Nobody likes those types. Now is the time to prove untrue the claim that avg. American citizens are selfcentric. Stop thinking that "they don't know how's it like because they were not here or didn't lose relatives or friends." Don't think that rest of the world don't care because many of us do, I do care, feel helpless and angry because our world is not so peaceful or innocent place anymore, if it ever was in the first place. We must yet again turn back and fight battles wich should have been settled centuries ago. Back into the dark middleages to fight over religious matters. This stinks!
mumble
(I don't know... let's just all move into closed areas, burn bridges behind us, raise missile shields and let the rest of the world sort it out with themselves. Maybe if we let'em be, they won't interfere with us? No prisons, we could just dump offenders over borders to the wastelands and forget'em there. Who cares.)
/mumble
I think there is only one image there. The other images look like copies of the first one, as if it was tiled.
Phobos - Greek word for fear or flight
I noticed that this post went to a score of 4 (I see the moderations in my "messages"), but then suddenly it dropped to 3 and I presume because people metamoderated one of the upmods downwards so it was revoked? I find it odd that the system then strangely takes a mod point from my 50, despite the fact that I have been at 50 for a long time. Seems rather silly.
This is purely a humor point that is because I'm curious about how meta-moderation works. I've actually had that "losing one from 50" happen before despite not being modded down.
Mirrored here, here and here.
Time to eat some coffee...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
God, that really puts it in perspective just how completely destroyed that place is. Thanks for the links.
Doesn't Dr. Evil use the word shone when desribing his testicles in the Austin Powers movie?
LIDAR is also the new gadgetry used by traffic police to catch speeders. Since it's a laser, it isn't really susceptible to jamming or long-range detection, as was possible with Radar guns. Cops love it because it increases their revenue stream, I hate it because it's only widening the gap between law and police. It's still nice to see this annoying stuff finally being used for something helpful for a change.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I understand that you are somewhat sensitive right now as many of us are. However if you read carefully, as others have pointed out, I in no way make light of the disaster. I refuse to be morose and publically flagellate myself because someone may misinterpret what I said, even though I said it very clearly.
Regarding wiredog's comments about being a typical sociopathic geek ... speak for yourself. Don't generalize your social limitations to the rest of the world. You may not think of people when you are wrapped up in the technology but others do. Why do you think I submitted the story? Technology exists to serve people, not the other way around.
FYI to both of you: I know many people who worked in the WTC and the surrounding areas. I still have not heard from some of them. Until I do, I still have to live my life as do many others. Allowing myself to be consumed by fear, loathing and grief is a disservice to the memory of all who perished.
Be careful who you judge, especially without knowing the whole story.
It is already being used in autonomous robots for its superiority over sonar at Helpmate with funding from NIST, for use in hospital robots.
... a reliable one instead of that stupid bloody "subscription for your own good and we'll spam you to hell and back" Times?
And when we use deep penetrating nukes to collapse caves in Afghanistan that will be kewl?
That said, yes, it is rather amazing how well the attack worked, though I doubt that they knew the towers would collapse the way they did, especially since the Empire State building took a direct hit from a WW II bomber (no bombs, and addmittedly much less fuel). Nevertheless, I have this vision of the terrorists huddled around one of the 50 legal TVs in Afghanistan, saying "whoa, DUDE, we are in a lot of trouble".
So, when we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki that was spiffy?
No, nor are any of the examples of the same type : It isn't the EVENT that people can be amazed or fascinated by, but the specifics. The atomic bomb is fascinating. The blast pattern is intriguing. The CIP of a dropped atomic bomb is interesting.
And when we use deep penetrating nukes to collapse caves in Afghanistan that will be kewl?
You see if they did use deep penetrating nukes, and then someone came on with an article about the technology behind deep penetrating nukes that would be interesting (I don't remember anyone calling any of this "kewl", and your use of coolio lingo is intriguingly misplaced) to anyone with >50% of a brain, but I have no doubt that it wouldn't be long before someone ranted "WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!". It's technology and analysis, and as that's the field that most of us are in then it intrigues and fascinates us.