About us
TopScan GmbH is an interdisciplinary service company with currently a staff of about 20 employees and contractors specialised in surveying, photogrammetry and geography. The main activity of TopScan is the planning, performing and evaluation for laser mapping projects.
TopScan was established in 1992 by Dr. Peter Frieß and Dr. Joachim Lindenberger, who built their company on the know-how and experience gained over several years of scientific work for the special research group 228 "High-precision navigation - Integration of navigational and geodetic methods" of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The first results of test flights that were undertaken in 1989 by the Institute of Photogrammetry of the University of Stuttgart, Germany, revealed the great potential of laser mapping in the field of topographic surveying.
In cooperation with the canadian company Optech Inc. TopScan has developed the laser scanning method. During Optech is responsible for the hardware, TopScan designs the evaluation software for laser mapping data. Consequently TopScan is involved in new developments always.
Practical oriented advancement
In 1997 the company owners won the Carl-Pulfrich-Preis for their practice-oriented further development of the laser mapping technology. This award, which is endowed by the Carl Zeiss company, is given for outstanding achievements in the science, application or design of surveying methods involving geodetic or photogrammetric instruments.
From the first pilot projects back in 1993 to now, TopScan has mapped and evaluated more than 220.000 km2, mainly in Germany and Europe.
In June 2008, mobile laser scanning (MLS) was added to our scope of services. In this method, similar to airborne laser scanning, objects are mapped by means of distance measurements taken from vehicles, and transformed into a point cloud or into models by using GPS/INS data. With mobile laser scanning, TopScan bridges the gap between two well-established surveying methods: airborne laser scanning and terrestrial laser scanning.