Building surveying device with an automatic plumb point finding functionality

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10054441-B2
Application number	US-201113302926-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 22, 2011
Priority date	Nov 24, 2010
Publication date	Aug 21, 2018
Grant date	Aug 21, 2018

Abstract

A building surveying device comprising a base, an upper part supported on the base such that it can rotate about a rotation axis, a sighting unit with a laser source designed for emitting a laser beam, and a laser light detector and an evaluation and control unit. The building surveying device has a plumb point finding functionality which, after being triggered, runs automatically, at least in part, and in the course of which the alignment of the sighting unit is changed under automatic control by the evaluation and control unit with the aid of the first and/or the second rotary drive and as a function of a known, defined first spatial point in such a way that precisely one such second spatial point lying on an object surface is approached and marked by the laser beam, which lies on a vertical plumb line containing the first spatial point.

First claim

We claim:

1. A building surveying device for measuring and marking spatial points during construction and/or development of buildings, comprising:
a base,
an upper part supported on the base such that the upper part is rotatable about a rotation axis,
a sighting unit supported on the upper part such that the sighting unit is pivotable about a pivoting axis and provides distance measuring functionality, with a laser source designed for emitting a laser beam, and a laser light detector, and
an evaluation and control unit, wherein:
a first and a second rotary drive enable the upper part and the sighting unit to be driven and aligned;
a spatial alignment of the sighting unit in relation to the base is acquirable via two goniometers; and
the evaluation and control unit is connected to the laser source, the laser light detector and the two goniometers in order to assign an acquired distance to a corresponding alignment and thus determine coordinates for spatial points,
wherein the building surveying device has a plumb point finding functionality which, after being triggered, runs automatically, at least in part, and wherein during the plumb point finding functionality, the spatial alignment of the sighting unit is changed under automatic control by the evaluation and control unit with the aid of the first and/or the second rotary drive, the plumb point finding functionality comprising the steps:
marking and measuring a first spatial point by the laser beam;
automatically changing the spatial alignment of the sighting unit based on the measured first spatial point in a manner that a second spatial point is targeted by the laser beam in such a way that the second spatial point lies on an object surface opposite of the first spatial point on a vertical plumb line containing the first spatial point;
marking the second spatial point by the laser beam; and
automatically measuring the second spatial point when the second spatial point is reached with the laser beam;

wherein a reference with respect to a direction perpendicular to a ground surface as an outer perpendicular direction, parallel to the vertical plumb line, is produced by an inclination sensor, wherein the inclination sensor is configured for determining the inclination relative to the Earth's gravitational field vector about two axes and for communicating the measurement data thereof to the evaluation and control unit.

2. A building surveying device according to claim 1 , wherein spatial points lying within a tolerance region defined around the vertical plumb line are also deemed to be lying on the vertical plumb line.

3. A building surveying device according to claim 2 , wherein the spatial alignment of the sighting unit is changed automatically following a search scheme and spatial points are measured until the second spatial point is reached with the laser beam.

4. A building surveying device according to claim 1 , wherein during the plumb point finding functionality, the spatial alignment of the sighting unit is changed automatically iteratively in a manner approaching the second spatial point, and spatial points are measured continuously until the second spatial point is reached with the laser beam.

5. A building surveying device according to claim 1 , wherein, during the plumb point finding functionality, the following steps are automatically carried out repeatedly until the second spatial point is reached with the laser beam:
measuring a currently sighted spatial point;
determining a mathematical passage point of the vertical plumb line through a horizontal plane containing the currently sighted spatial point; and
aligning the sighting unit in the direction of the mathematical passage point determined.

6. A building surveying device according to claim 1 , wherein with the spatial alignment of the sighting unit with the azimuth angle of the first spatial point, during the plumb point finding functionality an elevative alignment of the sighting unit, is varied, and spatial points are continuously measured until the second spatial point is reached with the laser beam.

7. A building surveying device according to claim 1 , wherein, for a case where the sighting unit is situated with an azimuthal alignment deviating from the azimuth angle of the first spatial point, during the plumb point finding functionality, the sighting unit is firstly aligned automatically with the azimuth angle of the first spatial point.

8. A building surveying device according to claim 1 , wherein, with an alignment of the laser beam with the object surface, during the plumb point finding functionality, at least three spatial points lying on the object surface are automatically measured or predetermined, a plane spanned by these three spatial points is defined and the point of intersection of said plane with the vertical plumb line is calculated, and said point of intersection is approached and marked by the laser beam as the first spatial point.

9. A building surveying device according to claim 1 , wherein with the aid of portions of the laser beam which are reflected at the object surface and are received by the laser light detector, the distance from spatial points of the object surface which are sighted by the laser beam is determined by the evaluation and control unit, wherein the sighting unit is configured such that:
the laser beam emitted by the laser source serves as a measurement and marking laser beam; or
the laser source has two partial laser sources, which are designed separately for emitting a first portion of the laser beam as a marking laser beam in the visible wavelength range and respectively a second portion, running coaxially or slightly parallel in an offset fashion with respect to the marking laser beam, of the laser beam as measurement laser beam in the near infrared wavelength range.

10. A building surveying device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the inclination sensor is integrated into the base.

11. A plumb point finding method with a building surveying device for measuring and marking spatial points during construction and/or development of buildings, the building surveying device including:
a base;
an upper part supported on the base such that the upper part is rotatable about a rotation axis;
a sighting unit supported on the upper part such that the sighting unit is pivotable about a pivoting axis and provide distance measuring functionality, with a laser source designed for emitting a laser beam, and a laser light detector; and
an evaluation and control unit, wherein:
a first and a second rotary drive enable the upper part and the sighting unit to be driven and aligned;
a spatial alignment of the sighting unit in relation to the base is acquired via two goniometers; and
the evaluation and control unit is connected to the laser source, the laser light detector and the two goniometers in order to assign an acquired distance to a corresponding alignment and thus determine coordinates for spatial points,
wherein during a plumb point finding method, an alignment of the sighting unit is changed under automatic control by the evaluation and control unit with the aid of the first and/or the second rotary drive, the plumb point finding method comprising the steps:
marking and measuring a first spatial point by the laser beam;
automatically changing the spatial alignment of the sighting unit based on the measured first spatial point in a manner that a second spatial point is targeted by the laser beam in such a way that the second spatial point lies on an object surface opposite to the first spatial point on a vertical plumb line containing the first spatial point;
marking the second spatial point by the laser beam; and

Assignees

• Schorr Christian
• Schroeder Frank
• Leica Geosystems Ag

Inventors

• Schorr Christian
• Schroeder Frank

Classifications

• G01C15/105 Primary

  Optical plumbing · CPC title