Merrick’s Sergio Aguayo Receives the First LiDAR Art Award

Merrick & Company’s (www.merrick.com) Sergio Aguayo, GISP, Senior Photogrammetrist, recently won first place in the International LiDAR Mapping Forum (ILMF) “LiDAR as Art” contest, announced by GeoDigital International. The awards program, just recently established, held its first competition at the end of 2011. Contestants were required to take airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) images and create art from that data.
Aguayo’s submittal entitled “Lighting up the Night” consists of five images captured from a testing site in the state of Utah.  After reviewing the images, Aguayo’s inspiration came from imagining driving on this road under a dramatic night sky, with a light source illuminating his way home. He added birds as a nice touch to creating depth and reality to the image. In order to keep the visual impact of the image, Aguayo kept the LiDAR points visible.
Aguayo was awarded an iPad from GeoDigital International as well as $1,000 to donate to a charity of his choice. He chose to contribute to the Overland High School soccer program, located in Aurora, Colorado.  In addition, Aguayo’s work was showcased at the ILMF 2012 conference and will be highlighted in promotional materials for the 2013 ILMF conference.
Having been with Merrick more than 10 years, Aguayo is a key person in supporting the photogrammetric and LiDAR discipline.  His responsibility includes the compilation of maps in different scales, has extensive experience on softcopy photogrammetric work stations, as well as works within many types of mapping software.
Merrick uses the most-advanced LiDAR sensors on the market today. Merrick has embraced this technology since 1997 and successfully provided these highly technical and definitive services to clients for a variety of applications including:

• Contour mapping
• 3-D perspective analysis
• Floodplain mapping
• Vegetation mapping
• Shoreline analysis
• Corridor/route studies
• Slope analysis
• Soil conservation

Merrick & Company is a $125 million engineering, architecture, design-build, surveying, and geospatial solutions firm, serving domestic and international clients in the energy, national security, life sciences, and sustainable infrastructure markets.  The firm is committed to sustainable design and construction practices through its 60+ LEED-accredited professionals and is continually expanding its in-house resources to serve tomorrow’s needs.  The employee-owned company maintains 10 offices in the U.S. as well as offices in Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.