Digitizing Alcatraz with Lenovo ThinkStation

For Peter, being stuck on Alcatraz Island for three weeks was a dream come true. He and his team were there to survey and map the island, using cutting-edge terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), drone-based LiDAR, and photogrammetry technologies—as well as a powerful Lenovo ThinkStation P8 workstation to process the vast amounts of data generated and build a detailed 3D map of the infamous island.

The Challenge

Unable to leave Alcatraz Island until they had scanned every nook and cranny, the VCTO Labs team needed to be able to post-process the huge amounts of data captured by laser scanners and drones on site.

The Solution

VCTO Labs used a 96-core Lenovo ThinkStation P8 workstation, equipped with NVIDIA RTX™ graphics cards and powerful AMD™ Ryzen™ Threadripper PRO processors, to process huge photogrammetry data sets at speed. The single-socket Lenovo ThinkStation P8 workstation punches above its weight in performance for heavy-duty graphics, 3D rendering, game development, and more.

The Results

After scanning every space they could get into—including a 150-year-old sewer—VCTO Labs was able to build a highly detailed 3D map that the U.S. National Parks Service can use to track the impact of climate change. Peter states: “The ThinkStation P8 gave use the horsepower we needed to process huge data sets right there on Alcatraz Island.”