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Student Placement with the Geospatial Surveying division

GagaMuller Group knows the potential that recent graduates and placement students can contribute to the construction industry – for this reason, we recently initiated our Graduate Programme and gave undergraduates and postgraduates the opportunity to work with us in our Dublin headquarters.


Following our chat with Luke and his involvement in our Project Management division as a graduate, we sat with a student on placement with our Geospatial Surveying division, to showcase what his role is on a daily basis. This is Ciaran’s journey so far.


Before we start, let us introduce him:

Ciaran Walsh, originally from Dublin, is a Geospatial Surveying student at Technology University Dublin (TUD). His current role at GagaMuller Group involves assisting the Geospatial Surveying division under the supervision of Andy Ricci.



Here is a quick look at Ciaran’s past week at GagaMuller Group:


Monday - Leica Register 360 was used to export a point cloud of a garage that had been scanned and worked on the previous week. It was exported from Register 360 as an E57 file to another software called SCC. From here details could be added to produce a topographic map and a measured building survey. I was introduced to a new tool on SCC, this being the ‘Slice’ tool. It was used to segment the point cloud into smaller sections therefore making it easier to identify details. I was tasked with creating a map of the garage from SCC. Features like walls, roads and paths were identified and drawn in the software.


Tuesday - Further work was carried out on SCC to finish the deliverable. This included the adding of street markings to the drawing. The markings included the arrows indicating the direction of traffic flow, any lines, dashed or continuous on the road and any writing on the road like ‘NO ENTRY’ indications. The drawing was then reviewed, and I was then shown how to add the data into a GagaMuller Group template.

Wednesday - Today I got a better overview of how the feature library is created and how to add or edit existing features. To input any feature into SCC, a code must exist. This is captured with a total station or GNSS on site or added to scan data in the office. For example, when inserting a spot height, the code ‘S’ must be used to add that feature.

Thursday - I continued working with the feature library in SCC to get a better understanding of how it works. Today we also had to setup a baseline for a survey that will be carried out tomorrow. This involved inserting two points into the ground and setting up a receiver over these points to get their position in ITM. A second reading of each point was carried out also to ensure that no blunders had occurred.

Friday – We carried out a survey of an existing office block in the city centre. This involved setting-up on one of the stations created on Thursday and back sighting to the other. Several chequered scanning targets were set up and sighted to. These would be used for control to align the scan and deliverables to ITM. The Leica RTC 360 Laser scanner was then set up. Multiple scans were taken of the outside of the building to incorporate the targets and map of the building’s exterior walls to produce building elevations. Scans were also captured internally for all walls, floors, doors, and all other relevant data.



When it comes to Ciaran’s wellbeing in his current role, his response was: I am really enjoying my experience with GagaMuller Group so far. I have found it very beneficial to work in the Geospatial Surveying division of a professional company and I feel as though I am gaining a lot of experience quickly in different forms of surveying.”.

He then continued: I find the use of the software SCC to be the most interesting. I have not worked with software like that before that allows one to extract features from a point cloud so easily and with such accuracy. The team have been great in explaining how to utilise the equipment and software in the most efficient ways.

As a final question we ask Ciaran, would he recommend a similar experience to other students and graduates? I would highly recommend joining GagaMuller Group to another student. The company has provided me with excellent experience of what is demanded in a professional surveying division. Plus, given the variety of projects the company is involved in, it provides a fantastic opportunity to see where surveying data fits in in the wider construction and Project Management sector”.

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