The Discovery Programme recently purchased a NextEngine 2020i scanner specifically designed for scanning small objects at higher resolution. This is a different type of laser scanner than the Mensi GS101 time of flight scanner, operating over much shorter ranges, and to a much higher resolution. It works on a laser triangulation principle, and can be set to two modes of operation with different specifications, shown in the table below.

(NextEngine Inc. is a US company and as such its scanners are designed to operate in empirical system).

Although designed to be used indoors for scanning objects or artefacts our first experiments with the scanner were on a number of rock carved sites: megalithic art at Tara (Mound of the Hostages) and Knowth; medieval ship graffiti at Moyne Abbey, Co Mayo; and graffiti and tomb detail at Roscommon Abbey. These projects were undertaken with a number of interested parties, including the National Monuments Service of DoEHLG who funded the Moyne Abbey work. We are currently investigating a number of processing options to register and merge the individual scans, and looking at ways of analysing and distributing the resultant models.

Full details will be posted on a dedicated section in the Technology > Survey section of the website in the coming months.