The dashboard displays information and the controls required during the scan.

The NavVis VLX dashboard shows the following information:

• Start or pause icon for pausing and restarting the recording.

• Settings button where you can change the panorama capturing settings and the system volume.

• Save button to stop and save the recorded data.

• Control point icon for adding a control point to the current Dataset.

• Pan or rotate button for controlling the view.

• Vertical view slider to change the view of the scanned dataset vertically in meters.

• The recenter button in the bottom left corner to recenter the live map.

At the top of the dashboard, the status panel keeps track of:

• The control point icon with the number of control points recorded .

• Camera status:

  • AUTO = automatic camera triggering

  • MANUAL = manual camera triggering

  • PAUSE = no data (Point cloud) captured, automatic camera triggering disabled

• The thumbnail image shows the last panorama image recorded and the total number panoramas in the dataset.

• Time elapsed since the beginning of the scan.

• A color indicator bar that turns red if you are walking or rotating too quickly.

• The battery status indicates the level of electrical charge of the battery, refer here.

  Caution: If the speed indicator turns red, it means that the user is moving so fast that the quality of the dataset might suffer. Move or rotate more slowly.

Quality Map

Interpreting the information shown on the Quality Map

Shown below is an example of the Scanning Screen. You can see the operator is scanning a room. The area marked blue is where there is good coverage, the ceiling and the floor are mapped, but you can see some areas of light green in the lower riight corner indicating that only the ceiling was scanned.

As the operator goes through the door you can see a dark green area indicating the floor has been successfully mapped but not the ceiling.

Check the screen often when scanning, it informs you of the completeness of your scanning session.

• The yellow arrow represents where you are now.

• The yellow lines extending out from the yellow arrow represent the Lidar rays emitting from the Laser Scanner at the top of the device.

• The white curly line shows the route you have taken.

• 360° Panoramic captures are represented: 360° Panoramic view.

• The Control Point Icon show the location of a control point and its name.

The colors in the Quality Map show how complete the scan is:

• Blue: The ceiling and floor are mapped.

• Light Green: The ceiling is mapped, but the floor has not been mapped.

• Dark Green: The floor is mapped, but the ceiling has not been mapped.

• White: Walls and other vertical objects.

SLAM Recovery

During scanning it is possible that the device may lose its ability to track motion. this can occur for a variety of reasons, for example if the Laser Scanner cannot detect distinct structures (e.g. in a tunnel) .When this happens, we refer to it as a SLAM break. To recover from a SLAM break, perform the following procedure:

• Change orientation:

  • Tilt the device upright.

  • Turn around to give the device a view of the previously scanned area.

• If changing orientation does not help, you can trace your path back by 1m (Maximum 2m).

• Within this area move the device slowly, make previously scanned structures visible again to the device.

• Once the device has found its position again and is no longer lost, move forward slowly and continue with the scan.

• If you repeatedly loose tracking in a corridor, move device so the laser scanners can detect the beginning and the end of the corridor.

• If after multiple attempts a recovery is not possible, restart the scan. Begin a little before the lost SLAM status was displayed, try to keep the device upright for a more stable SLAM in that area. Refer for here for more information Common Causes of Poor SLAM Results and How to Solve them.

System Status Messages

Errors and Warnings are shown as pop-up messages.

• Warnings give the user hints on how to achieve better results (e.g. rotate slower, walk slower, do not tilt) and do not imply an immediate risk for the mapping process itself.

• Errors mean that something unexpected has happened (e.g. a sensor failed, a software process terminated, time synchronization failed). The software will ask you to stop mapping if a severe error has occurred.

Note: In the case of errors, read the error message carefully and refer to the troubleshooting instructions.

Contact NavVis technical support with all available information.