User:Marlene Gstrein/sandbox/RIEGL

RIEGL

RIEGL is an international LiDAR system supplier based in Horn, Austria. RIEGL designs and manufactures precision laser scanners and companion software including terrestrial, mobile, unmanned, airborne and industrial sensors. These sensors are used by scientists for climate change monitoring and disaster recovery, engineers and contractors for major infrastructure projects, archeology, forestry and agriculture specialists, the mining industry, maps serving autonomous vehicle systems, and crash and crime scene documentation, among others.

The company was founded by Dr. Johannes Riegl in 1978. RIEGL provides worldwide sales, training, support and services from the Austrian headquarters in Horn; and its offices in Vienna, Salzburg, and Styria, Austria. These services are also found within the company’s internationally located offices.

Currently, RIEGL employs around 250 staff worldwide. The RIEGL headquarters in Horn has over 50,000 square feet of workspace for research, development, production as well as for marketing, sales, training and administration. Another 350,000 square feet of terrain for field testing and expansion is available.

RIEGL has a presence in Austria, China, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and North America; as well as distributor partners worldwide.

History
Dr. Johannes Riegl first started his research in 1968, ten years before founding RIEGL. He attended the Vienna University of Technology from 1964 to 1969, where he studied radar and communications engineering and also obtained his PhD. At the time, there were only a few types of lasers and they were still in the early developmental stages. Dr. Riegl was determined to find a better solution and sought out different methods to further along his research. The company was founded in the late 1970s starting with short-range impulse radar distance meters for industrial applications. The product range and thus the application sectors expanded over the course of the first two decades with the introduction of laser rangefinders, pocket-size laser binoculars for semi-professional and recreational use besides distance sensors for industrial purposes and speed meters for traffic speed control. Except for the industrial distance meters which still represent a substantial market segment for the company, these earlier product lines were closed when the focus of the company shifted to the development of 2D and 3D laser scanners.

LiDAR (Light Detection and Radar)
Laser scanning (LiDAR) is a tool in the surveying and mapping industry that captures real world scenes with accuracies measured in millimeters. In contrast to conventional surveying methods, that provide discrete measuring points for selected targets, laser scanning devices capture the overall surface of an object with a very dense pattern of measuring points for selected targets, laser scanning devices capture the overall surface of an object with a very dense pattern of measuring points referred to as a point cloud. The denser the point cloud, the more elaborate the 3D scan of the object is. Today’s list of uses for precision data collected with LiDAR scanners is quite diverse and is growing worldwide.