Reconstruct partnered with Sensera Systems to offer our customers cameras for monitoring construction sites. What makes Sensera cameras uniques is that they operate on solar power, and use cellular data to upload their images to Reconstruct, which eliminates the need for data and power cables. This provides our customers the freedom of installing these cameras anywhere on-site or nearby buildings. Most of our customers install these cameras on the trolley of their construction cranes, which enables the camera to move back and forth on the crane jib, and left and right when the crane rotates. This 2-dimensional movement provides enough coverage of the site to create point clouds. You can learn more about linking Sensera cameras to your project in Reconstruct by visiting this article.

You can install your Sensera Systems cameras on nearby buildings (Fixed Cameras) or on construction cranes in your site (Crane Cameras)

Fixed Cameras

Fixed cameras do not move, they are usually attached to a nearby building or another building in the same site. Sensera Systems cameras that are installed as fixed cameras can be setup to upload images automatically to Reconstruct. You can view these images in the Images tab in the Data Manager. You can also combine these images with drone images or crane camera images to create a point cloud of your construction site. 

You can follow the instructions in this article to setup a timelapse schedule for your Sensera camera. For a fixed camera, the timelapse interval (time between each two images) does not make an impact on point clouds. But you should consider the speed of your construction process. If your site is moving fast (e.g. erecting steel in a short time) then you should setup the interval to be 30 min, or even 15 min. Otherwise, one picture every 1-2 hours might be enough.

There is an indicator at the top left hand side of the timelapse schedule setup window in the Sensera portal that shows how much data your camera is expected to use according to your settings. If this indicator turns red then you need to reduce the number of images your camera is scheduled to take, the resolution of these images, or the duration of your timelapse schedule. Otherwise, you might incur overage charges.

Crane Cameras

Crane cameras are Sensera cameras that are installed on construction cranes. We recommend installing the cameras on the crane trolley so it benefits from the crane movement in both forward/backward and sideways (check the picture above). 

If you have more than one crane on-site, it is recommended to install one camera on each crane. This will help provide more coverage and maybe images from different heights. This variation in image heights and more comprehensive coverage can significantly improve the quality of the point cloud.

For crane camera, the image intervals (time between each two images) make a big impact on the quality of point clouds. The general rule of thumb is to have more images. Having more images is more important than having higher resolution images. The target number is 150 images per day. You should use the information in this article to setup your time lapse schedule to capture at least 150 images a day.

The most common way to achieve this number of images is to setup two timelapse schedules for each camera. One schedule for the morning and another for the afternoon. For example:

Example Timelapse Schedule for a 10 GB Data Plan

Morning Schedule:

• Start 8:00 am
• End 12:00 pm
• interval 5 min (you might need to call Sensera support to enable this interval if the shortest interval in your project is 15 min)

Afternoon Schedule:

• Start 1:00 pm
• End 5:00 pm
• interval 5 min

This example above might require a 10 GB data plan. If your plan provides only 5 GB of data, then you need to either shorten the duration of the capture, or increase the interval. For example, shortening the duration of the schedule looks like this:

Example Timelapse Schedule for a 5 GB Data Plan

Morning Schedule:

• Start 9:00 am
• End 11:00 am
• interval 5 min (you might need to call Sensera support to enable this interval if the shortest interval in your project is 15 min)

Afternoon Schedule:

• Start 1:30 pm
• End 3:30 pm
• interval 5 min

Overall the main target here is to setup the schedules to cover the busiest times at your construction site. This way the cranes will be moving all the time, and the cameras can capture the most diverse set of images of your site.