geospatial

We acquired the Vision Pro to revolutionize our visualization environment, projecting LiDAR point clouds of highway infrastructure asset data for DOTs nationwide. I purchased the case to safeguard the device during frequent travel. Over the last two weeks, I took multiple 2-day trips with the VP securely stored in my North Face Router backpack, alongside a 15-inch MacBook Pro, an 11-inch iPad Pro, cables, power bricks, toiletries, and clothing. Remarkably, the backpack passed as a personal bag on both Frontier and United flights. Despite its puffy white exterior, which I anticipate will quickly accumulate dirt, the case provided excellent protection. Its quick accessibility allowed me to showcase the Vision Pro's potential to hundreds of attendees at a recent major Geospatial conference in Denver. Beyond my scheduled presentation, I readily conducted impromptu demonstrations using my MacBook or iPad as a display.

I realize that I am using the Vision Pro case in a more aggressive manner than most owners will but it was available on day one, it worked well for my travel and met my expectations. From someone who has actually used it in the real world, I give it a four out of five thumbs up. 

I forgot to point out, Apple Maps is the Apple Car's secret weapon. They have 3D data from almost everywhere. That gives them a step up on anybody else's AV platform that utilizes embedded maps. It is way more miles than anyone other than Waymo. They also control the iPhone technology and that gives them the mechanism for connecting their vehicle to everything else, including the infrastructure and other Apple Cars. It might even put them a few steps ahead of Tesla in autonomous vehicle driving reliability. Think of Apple Maps as the digital rail that the autonomous Apple cars travel on's 

It is foolish to think that Apple's plan is not well thought out. Taking their time and staying quiet is a great strength. Whatever they plan to do, it will be pretty sound and you are all going to want one. Just hope they come in a color other than white.

There are two schools of thought on how a vehicle can maintain its position and see the fluid changes occurring during a drive. One is the concept of where the vehicle sensors are trying to see everything in realtime and making the split second decisions on the fly.  The other is to use a highly accurate driving map which gives the autonomous system a knowledge of the infrastructure. A sensor package then can be focused only on what is not already in the map and compare what is different to what is already known. Way fewer CPU cycles for the control unit.

It can be compared to how we drive to work each day without a map. We have all of the directions and turns embedded in our memories. That allows us to focus on the other vehicles and non motorized mobile objects who's movements can't be readily predicted and adjust accordingly. Way less overhead for our brains.

Just a guess but I would think that Apple is using the second method as they have a very valuable asset known as Apple Maps. The organization I am with is collecting asset and pavement data for DOTs across the country. We use that same raw data to make HAD Maps for several of the top AV test facilities in the country. If you take a close look at how the Apple Maps collection vehicles are set up, they are doing the exact same thing and the data they are creating could be rendered into digital twins for both highly accurate driving maps and augmented reality backgrounds. They are very similar outputs. 

In the US, Apple's current generation collection fleet has already captured a pretty nice dataset for the new maps. The company I work for was one of the first to use this technology in the US, starting in 2007, doing 3D asset extraction and digital terrain modeling (DTM) for state DOT's across the country.  We collect over 100 thousand miles per year and our team sees the Apple Vehicles all of the time. We keep track of when we cross paths with anybody who does this kind of work. They show up in our images and we show up in theirs as well.  

The angles they have chosen for the three HDL-32 LiDAR heads creates a very dense point cloud that, when combined with the photogrammetric imagery, can be rendered into incredibly precise object identification and localization. Beyond just the standard map, the data can be used to create autonomous driving HD maps, digital twins for simulation, and a highly accurate foundation for the use of augmented reality in the real world. 

We can continue to speculate as to what Apple's intent is. From my position in this industry, the data that they are compiling has incredible potential. We would stop collecting on our own if we could get full access to it to do our DOT projects. My guess is that they have something pretty special that they are working on and we are going to have to be a little patient until they are ready to show us.

Anthony is a brilliant human being that has left plenty of damage in his wake. Companies that haven't been mentioned in this article include Velodyne, Nokia/Here, TopCon, and Tyto, just to name a few.  He has made a ton of money in the process but it looks like he will now have to pay a dear price for his recklessness.  It's to bad he didn't have the character to play the game fair.