If you see a white van on the street with a striking device on the roof, you should know that you have before you the surveyor of the future. Only that it is already beginning to be tested in the present. And it works. It is “a mobile laser system that allows the urban parameters of the city of Ávila to be scanned in three dimensions at great speed.” This was explained on Wednesday by Diego González Aguilera, professor of the Cartographic Engineering Department of the Polytechnic School of the University of Salamanca who, in collaboration with the University of Vigo, is implementing this “novel system at a national level.” The speed in capturing the information provided by this system is such that it will x-ray “the eleven urban units of the city of Ávila in one or two days,” while this same task would take months if it were carried out following “traditional topographic techniques,” said González Aguilera. And although he acknowledges that this technology is in direct competition with surveyors who work in the field and who, in fact, are trained at the Polytechnic School of Ávila, he also stressed that the challenge now is to “rethink the workflows we have had until now and learn to live with new technologies.”
