Surveyors, more than most, are experts at seeing things as they really are. For Alexander Buxton and Larry Medrano of Precision Surveys, a DJ&A Company, that instinct runs especially deep.
Both grew up around the work. Their fathers were surveyors. They learned the craft early, in the field and (probably) around breakfast tables.
So, when Medrano first saw a NavVis VLX at a surveying conference, he was curious but cautious. He wanted it tested.
To do this, Medrano and Buxton compared it with their company’s standard methods, checked quality reports, and verified with control.
Five months later, NavVis VLX entered daily use at Precision Surveys. It’s now a key tool in projects ranging from gas stations, school campuses, and remote freeway structures.
This blog will give clear insights into where, how, and why Precision Surveys uses its NavVis VLX. It’ll also explore how their company’s established workflow has changed – and not changed – since adding the solution to their toolkit.
Buxton and Medrano shared all of this information with NavVis’ Kevin Gildea and Mike Melancon in a recent NavVis-hosted webinar which you can watch here.
When They Use NavVis
| Situation | Why the NavVis VLX fits |
|---|---|
| Feature-rich sites | Pumps, bollards, signposts, and canopy edges create blind spots for static scanners. NavVis VLX captures every face on the first walk. |
| Projects with tight deadlines | Crews cover four to five acres an hour; data from a Tuesday scan is ready for Wednesday drafting. |
| Remote work | One trip handles control, scanning, and upload, saving hotel nights and long drives. |
Case in point: A single Precision Surveys technician walked a ten-acre parcel in under two hours, closed control, uploaded the files that evening, and drafting began the next day.
How They Use NavVis
- 1. Set control: Survey-grade points ring and cross the site. “We surround the site with control and place some through the middle, just like an aerial LiDAR job,” Buxton said.
- 2. Plan solid loop closures: A quick recon walk pins down gates, fences and stray forklifts. Every NavVis VLX path closes a loop, “almost like a mini traverse,” which tightens the SLAM solution.
- 3. Collect plenty of check shots: Using a robot total station or GNSS rover, crews grab 20–40 hard points (water valves, painted stripes, manhole rims) that show up clearly in the cloud and anchor the QC.
- 4. Run a dual review: One technician extracts linework in Trimble Business Center (TBC), checking residuals against the quality report. A second technician opens the cloud in CAD, cross-checks the same shots and confirms nothing was missed.
- 5. Process in the cloud: Back in the truck (or the hotel), data uploads to NavVis IVION. Within 6–12 hours the colorized point cloud is ready to download. For the gas-station example, that meant field on Day 1, extraction on Day 2.
- 6. Classify in minutes: Automatic region classification in TBC sorts points into ground, buildings, poles, vegetation and a “low-point noise” bin. Moving cars land in that bin and vanish with one filter. Buxton calls ghosting “essentially a non-issue.”
“It’s real value without changing how we work.” — Alexander Buxton, Field Operations Coordinator, Precision Surveys, a DJ&A company
Real-World Impact
| Project | Field effort | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Ten-acre commercial site | Two walks, four batteries, one technician | Drafting started 24 h later with no shadow gaps. |
| Gas station, 2.6 acres | 260-mile round trip, 4.5 h on site | Cloud processed overnight; licence plates and faces blurred automatically. |
| Freeway culvert and overpass | Control above and below roadway | SLAM + control fixed drift in post; no re-scan needed. |
“I wish we had this three years ago.” — Larry Medrano, President, Precision Surveys, a DJ&A company
How it Compares for Precision Surveys
To help others choose the right tool for the job, Buxton and Medrano shared useful insights into how NavVis VLX compares with the Trimble SX12:
| Aspect | Trimble SX12 | NavVis VLX |
|---|---|---|
| Shadows | Linger behind pumps and vehicles | None – every surface is lit |
| Density | Thick near tripod, thin between | Even carpet of points |
| Set-ups | Many tripod moves | Two comfortable walks |
| Clean-up | Click-by-click | Region classification removes most noise |
Expanding Applications
- Structural retrofits – Bridge and dam teams slot fresh clouds into design models.
- Environmental snapshots – Pump-and-treat sites and forest plots get repeatable scans.
- Interior mapping – A 12-storey condo was scanned floor by floor for unit boundaries.
- Substations – Early trials show the scan finishing before the safety briefing ends.
- Archaeology – Rapid documentation of artifacts and historic facades keeps clients happy.
Lessons and Takeaways
- Field hours have dropped. Drafting hours have gone up slightly, but only because the team now has more reliable, complete data delivered faster.
- The processed point cloud is dense, clean, and already classified, removing most of the friction that once came with stitching scans, cleaning up noise, or sending crews back to fill in missed spots.
- Client deliverables are more consistent, and internal review cycles are tighter. Technicians now spend less time chasing fieldwork and more time delivering value.
As Buxton put it in the webinar, “It’s real value without changing how we work.” And Medrano, reflecting on a large project that would have benefited from NavVis years ago, put it even more plainly: “I wish we had this three years ago.”
To watch the webinar with NavVis and Precision Surveys, a DJ&A Company that inspired this blog, visit this page: “Real-World Results: How Precision Surveys Elevates Projects with NavVis”