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LAX Airport

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x-Spatial works with airport operators and owners to develop software solutions for large, complex infrastructures. Their products provide lossless exchange of information between CAD and GIS platforms – an unparalleled level of integration between data sources that leads to streamlined workflows and automated processes. For Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), x-Spatial needed an efficient and accurate process for capturing and creating as-built models for their GIS of 2 terminals, including the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

“The Applanix TIMMS (Trimble Indoor Mobile Mapping System) platform was the obvious choice due to its inherent capabilities and the fact that it could perform the scanning process during the day with passengers around,” according to Ed Maghboul of x-Spatial.

LAX is the fifth busiest airport in the world and second busiest in the United States, offering 692 daily flights to 85 domestic cities and 928 weekly nonstop flights to 67 cities in 34 countries on 59 passenger air carriers. Over 70 million passengers go through LAX every year! The central complex features nine passenger terminals connected. by a U-shaped two-level roadway. The critical challenge to scanning LAX: scanning such a very large and busy facility, while people are around, without any degradation in speed and accuracy. TIMMS achieved this.

The scanning work, performed by Applanix personnel using TIMMS, was completed in under 30 hours over a four-day window, with no interruption of airport operations. The final as-built models, which included all furniture, equipment, booths etc. were produced by a CAD design team in around 100 hours, and delivered to the client’s schedule.

TIMMS was designed and built for projects like this. It is the optimal fusion of technologies for capturing spatial data of indoor and other GNSS denied areas. It provides both LiDAR and spherical video, enabling the creation of accurate, real-life representations (maps, models) of interior spaces and all of its contents; every object in the interior space – including desks, chairs, stairs, and doors – appear in the plan. The maps are geo-located, meaning that the real world positions of each area of the building and its contents are known.