Case Study: EOS2 LiDAR

Mapping the Bat Cave with the EOS2 LiDAR sensor

How a small team used the EOS2 to build a measurable 3D map of a complex cave system on a hobbyist budget.

See the photos Explore the 3D scan

~600kLiDAR points captured

360°Spherical scan at every stop

3DMeasurable model of the whole cave

The challenge

Mapping the unseen

The only map of the Bat Cave was a flat diagram on a sign outside the entrance. Useful for orientation, but it says nothing about ceiling height, passage shape or volume, and it is only as accurate as whoever drew it.

For cavers and researchers, understanding the true 3D structure of a cave is what matters. Until recently that meant bulky, expensive equipment. The team's goal was simple: produce a high-fidelity 3D model with a low-cost LiDAR sensor.

The approach and the result

A digital twin of the cave

The team carried the portable EOS2 through the cave, setting it on the floor and running a spherical scan at each stop from a portable battery. Each scan captured the walls, floor and ceiling around it, including every crack and overhang a photograph would miss.

The individual scans, nearly 600,000 data points in all, were stitched into a single point cloud of the whole cave: interactive, measurable and shareable. It is a volumetric record suitable for speleology, documentation and virtual exploration, and the team could review it in more detail than they had ever seen the cave before.

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