Professor, Department of Natural Resources & the Environment

• What excites you most about your research?

Solving real-world problems that affect society and individuals. The State of Connecticut and Eversource have invested heavily in state-of-the-art digital mapping products such as three-dimensional point clouds that capture minute details of all features on Connecticut’s landscape. The point clouds are massive – they are comprised of billions of points – so developing computer programs to extract utility poles is challenging and rewarding because mapping them using a computer is vastly less expensive, and often more accurate, than mapping them from the ground.

• What’s the most valuable aspect of your research for people and communities?

Automated feature extraction is a great cost saver. These data have been collected for the general good. This is just one effort to leverage the tax-payer’s investment to produce a return that’s good for us all.

Research focus: Algorithms, data structures, LIDAR, terrestrial scanning LIDAR, feature extraction, utility-pole recognition.

Website: http://www.nre.uconn.edu/Faculty_and_Staff/Meyer.php