Measuring appliance comprising an automatic representation-changing functionality

A measuring appliance for measuring and marking spatial points of a construction including interiors of buildings, comprising:

• a base;
• a sighting unit, which is rotatable and pivotable relative to the base and provides distance measuring functionality, having a laser source designed to emit a laser beam in the direction of an aiming axis, and a laser light detector;
• an evaluation and control unit;
• and
• a display, wherein:
• a spatial alignment of the sighting unit relative to the base is detectable by means of two goniometers;
• the evaluation and control unit is connected to the laser source, the laser light detector, and also the goniometers in order to assign a detected distance to a corresponding alignment and thus to determine coordinates for spatial points;
• input or measured spatial points, which form a spatial point set, can be stored;
• a plan view representation or spatial representation of at least some spatial points from the spatial point set can be displayed, wherein said spatial points are at least partly connected by lines;
• the measuring appliance has a representation-changing functionality, in the context of which, depending on a line selected from the lines displayed in the plan view representation or the spatial representation by the user, in a manner automatically controlled by the evaluation and control unit;
• a virtual area is defined by the selected line and a direction predefined as vertical;
• a subset of spatial points which lie within a buffer zone surrounding the virtual area in a defined manner is selected from the spatial point set;
• and
• an elevation representation of exclusively such spatial points which belong to the subset is displayed on the display.

A method for changing the representation from a plan view representation or spatial representation displayed on a display of a measuring appliance to an elevation representation, wherein the measuring appliance comprises:

• a base,
• a sighting unit, which is rotatable and pivotable relative to the base and provides distance measuring functionality, having a laser source designed to emit a laser beam in the direction of an aiming axis, and a laser light detector,
• an evaluation and control unit, and
• a display, wherein:
• a spatial alignment of the sighting unit relative to the base is detectable by means of two goniometers:
• the evaluation and control unit is connected to the laser source, the laser light detector and also the goniometers in order to assign a detected distance to a corresponding alignment and thus to determine coordinates for spatial points;
• input or measured spatial points, which form a spatial point set, are stored;
• the plan view representation or spatial representation of at least some spatial points from the spatial point set is displayed, wherein said spatial points are at least partly connected by lines,
• depending on a line selected from the lines displayed in the plan view representation or the spatial representation by the user, automatically:
• a virtual area is defined by the selected line and a direction predefined as vertical;
• a subset of spatial points which lie within a buffer zone surrounding the virtual area in a defined manner is selected from the spatial point set;
• and
• an elevation representation of exclusively such spatial points which belong to the subset is displayed on the display.

A system comprising a construction measuring appliance for measuring and marking spatial points in the context of construction and/or development including interior finishing of buildings and at least three reference point marks which can be fitted in spaces and which each have a known pattern indicating a discrete reference point, wherein the construction measuring appliance comprises:

• a base;
• an upper part mounted on the base in a manner rotatable about a rotation axis;
• a sighting unit, which is mounted on the upper part in a manner pivotable about a pivoting axis and provides distance measuring functionality, having a laser source designed to emit a laser beam in the direction of an aiming axis, and a laser light detector and also having an integrated digital camera aligned in the direction of the aiming axis;
• and
• an evaluation and control unit having image processing and storage means;
• a first and a second rotary drive make the upper part and the sighting unit drivable and alignable;
• a spatial alignment of the sighting unit relative to the base is detectable by means of two goniometers;
• and
• the evaluation and control unit is connected to the laser source, the laser light detector and also the goniometers in order to assign a detected distance to a corresponding alignment and thus to determine relative coordinates for spatial points, wherein:
• the construction measuring appliance has a referencing functionality for referencing its own current location and its own current orientation relative to the reference points which are situated within visual and measurement range of the construction measuring appliance and the absolute positions of which in a desired coordinate system are known, including calibration from a previous location and stored, wherein in the context of the referencing functionality after initiation in a manner automatically controlled by the evaluation and control unit the following steps proceed:
• acquiring a plurality of camera images in different alignments of the sighting unit within a defined search field of view range;
• evaluating the acquired camera images by image processing with regard to identifying the reference point marks in the acquired camera images on the basis of the respectively known patterns thereof;
• determining the respective image positions of the identified reference point marks in the acquired camera images;
• deriving solid angles with respect to the reference points respectively indicated by the reference point marks identified in the camera images on the basis of:
• the respective image positions of the reference point marks;
• and
• the respective alignment of the sighting unit in which the respective camera image is acquired;
• progressively moving to the solid angles respectively derived for the reference points and determining the respective relative coordinates of the reference points;
• and
• referencing the own current location and the own current orientation relative to the reference points on the basis of the absolute positions respectively known for the reference points in the desired coordinate system and the relative coordinates respectively determined for the reference points.