VZ-1000 Tested in the Australian Field

This summer first devices of the new VZ-1000 already delivered to RIEGL’s Australian distribution partner, C.R. Kennedy & Company Pty. Ltd. have been tested in the field successfully.

C.R. Kennedy (www.crkennedy.com.au) with headquarters in Melbourne and branch offices in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane is Australia’s largest distributor of photographic, surveying, surveillance, medical, and digital audio equipment.

John Reddington, National Laser Scanning Manager at C.R. Kennedy, was really excited about the first results acquired with the new V-Line scanner: “In September we have completed trials at three iron ore mines in Western Australia. Feedback about the VZ-1000 initial test results was excellent – we believe this will become our most popular instrument!”

 

Excellent Range Measurement Performance on Iron Ore

One of the mines that first tested the new scanner was Rio Tinto’s Tom Price Mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Rio Tinto (http://www.riotinto.com), one of the world’s leading mining and exploration companies with global presence, is operating on nearly every continent. In Australia Rio Tinto had already been using RIEGL laser scanners for several years for data acquisition in their mines.

The Tom Price Mine in the picturesque Hammersley Ranges has been operating since the 1960s in the exploitation of iron ore. More information is available at
http://www.riotintoironore.com/ENG/operations/501_mount_tom_price.asp.
It is one of 11 mines owned by Rio Tinto, who also own the largest privately owned railway in Australia.

Measurement data acquired with their RIEGL LMS-Z420 scanner was already available for comparison. “In typical red iron ore the LMS-Z420 will measure around 750m of usable data. The VZ-1000 is measuring up to 1400m in the same conditions. "This exceeds our expectation, it is a fantastic instrument”, commented Craig Denham, main surveyor at Rio Tinto. Their main tasks with the scanner are ongoing pit wall measurements as well as volume calculations from the stockpiles. The surface models can also be used for “bench mark” references for ongoing quality assurance. They provide a historical “snapshot” of the pit at any given time. Enhancing the range measurement capability and increasing the measurement quality by using the new V-Line scanner will minimize the work in the field and offer new possibilities for further processing.

1400 m on Dark Grey Manganese Ore

The other site C.R. Kennedy trialed the new scanner at was Woodie Woodie, a manganese mine run by Consolidated Minerals and HWE (http://www.hwe.com.au/)
Their surveyors have a total of 10 open pits to survey, as well as numerous stockpiles. This is quite a large job for a small group of surveyors. They were really convinced that a vehicle mounted VZ-1000 would significantly speed up their survey tasks.

Mike Annear, National Laser Scanning Specialist, Survey at C.R. Kennedy reported: “We were pleasantly surprised to find the scanner getting good returns from ranges up to 1400m from the dark grey manganese ore. The client was also very impressed with the speed of setup and the scanning speed itself.”


Coal Mine Surveyors are Enthusiastic of VZ-1000 Performance

One of the first VZ-1000 Laser Scanners delivered to Australia was purchased by and is now operated at Newlands Coal Mine in Queensland. Andrew Hardie, head surveyor at Newsland Coal Mine, “We have had experience with a few scanners before – and we were really impressed with the small size, the extreme speed and the ease of use of the VZ-1000.” Mike Annear, running the training course with the surveying team there, added: “It’s really a fine job to show the new users how to run this phantastic instrument – and to see how enthusiastic they get realizing the enormous range of services offered.”

Conclusion

With its high performance and user friendliness the RIEGL VZ-1000 is the ideal solution for surveying in open pit mining. The quality of acquired data is significantly improved, working conditions are defused, and time exposure and thus costs for outdoor measurements are minimized – not only in Australia but on the whole globe.

So we are looking forward to presenting you further mission reports and news in one of the next issues …

 

  • VZ-1000 at Tom Price Mine, comparison VZ-1000 - LMS-Z420i
  • VZ-1000 laser scanner range measurement
  • VZ-1000 measurement performance on red iron ore
  • VZ-1000 laser scanner mounted on a car's roof rack
  • VZ-1000 at Mount Nameless
  • Range measurement performance VZ-1000, detail, Mount Nameless
  • VZ-1000 range measurement performance
  • VZ-1000 at Woodie Woodie Manganese Mine
  • VZ-1000 Laser Scanner at Newsland Coal Mine, Queensland