Join Tobias Pforr, Leica BLK2FLY Business Lead, as he announces the BLK2FLY’s brand new Indoor Mode in the Swiss Life Arena in Zurich, Switzerland. This long sought-after feature opens new scanning possibilities in indoor spaces such as arenas, plants, warehouses, and other facilities. To effectively and safely scan these spaces, Indoor Mode accomplishes three things: it does not require GNSS, obstacle avoidance is reduced to 1.5 meters, and it flies slower for maneuverability, which enables it to get closer to objects and fly in tight spaces. 

Swiss Life Arena is a large hockey rink and event hall with many difficult-to-capture features, especially the ceiling of the arena. But, with the BLK2FLY Indoor Mode, Tobias and his crew scanned the entire arena to create a comprehensive dataset. Using Indoor Mode, they first executed scan missions for autonomous reality capture, allowing the BLK2FLY to safely scan on its own. In the Swiss Life Arena, this was just as easy to accomplish as it would be outdoors – they simply set a scan mission for the BLK2FLY to capture more open spaces, like seating areas and the ice rink itself, a task that it performed with ease. 

But for more complicated areas, they used Indoor Mode in combination with manual flight. Due to Indoor Mode’s reduced flight speed and increased obstacle avoidance, which builds on improvements in the BLK2FLY’s visual SLAM system, they flew the BLK2FLY manually up and around ceiling rafters, rods, and other structures that would otherwise not have been possible to capture in such close detail. The result? A complete dataset of the entire interior of the arena with all features included. 

Indoor Mode also bridges the gap between collecting indoor and outdoor data, and with Swiss Life Arena, our team captured both the interior arena and hallways and exterior entrances to the building, which connects indoor and outdoor data together. And because Indoor Mode does not require GNSS, it can also be used outdoors where GNSS is not available – a highly valuable feature to enable even more airborne scanning applications. 

Indoor Mode is now available via a free firmware update for all BLK2FLY users. 

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