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Published on 26 Jun 2025
James Willoughby
Reality capture for railway infrastructure management
Gaussian Splat of Liverpool Street Station, captured with XGRIDS Lixel L2 Pro in partnership with Network Rail, shows the benefits of 3DGS for asset monitoring.
Handheld scan of London's Liverpool Street Station shows how reality capture can benefit railway infrastructure monitoring;
The survey was conducted with the XGRIDS L2 Pro, in collaboration between heliguy™ and Network Rail;
The scanner collects Gaussian Splat data, as well as true-colour point cloud information, in the same survey;
"This type of capture brings many benefits to all parts of the rail industry," says Network Rail asset engineer Ken Durling;
Contact the heliguy™ survey team to integrate XGRIDS' hardware and software solutions into your workflows.
This video shows how the XGRIDS Lixel L2 Pro handheld scanner can transform railway infrastructure monitoring.
The photo-realistic Gaussian Splat of London’s Liverpool Street Station is underpinned by a spatially-accurate true-colour point cloud.
Both data outputs were collected during the same survey, without requiring additional hardware.
And Network Rail asset engineer Ken Durling believes this combination of geospatial precision and high visual fidelity offers a powerful solution for digitising the UK’s rail network - empowering asset documentation and inspection.
"I am very pleased with the data,” he said.
“I believe this type of capture brings many benefits to all parts of the rail industry - useful for safety planning, construction oversight, and assessments.
"For me personally, I would utilise it to scan the underside of some of our bridges, especially in highly-populated areas where obtaining drone data can be particularly challenging.
“XGRIDS’ handheld scan data can also be combined with drone data, which would allow us to capture information on top of the bridge, and combine into one model.
"Combining the point-cloud data and Gaussian Splatting gives us a great overall view of difficult-to-access areas."
Using the XGRIDS L2 Pro to capture Liverpool Street Station
The Liverpool Street Station scan was undertaken in partnership with the Heliguy survey team and Network Rail, as the latter trials handheld scanning for infrastructure monitoring.
Britain's busiest station is undergoing significant upgrades and renovations, providing a challenging scan environment. But the L2 Pro duly delivered.
The SLAM-based scanner combines rotating LiDAR, dual 48MP visual cameras for panoramic vision, and IMU modules with AI.
It took 30 minutes to map three platforms. The data was processed through Lixel Cyber Color to generate the Gaussian Splat, and the flythrough video was created in Nubigon.
Reality capture and true colour points clouds: How the L2 Pro benefits railway infrastructure management
The Lixel L2 Pro's data quality, coupled with its seamless end-to-end workflow, offers multiple benefits for the rail sector.
Photo-realistic 3DGS can be used for enhanced detail visibility, ideal for applications such as detecting hairline cracks in tunnel linings, rust on bolts or signal poles, or wear on rail heads or platform edges.
High-quality scan data forms an ideal baseline for monitoring change detection over time.
The ability to capture point clouds and Splats in the same scan increases efficiency - ideal for rapid inspections during line closures, emergency surveys following incidents, and fast scans of station upgrades or platform works.
BIM and GIS integration: Outputs can be integrated into BIM models for construction or retrofitting, GIS for asset tracking, or maintenance platforms for scheduling or predictive upkeep.
Remote site assessment: Stakeholders can virtually explore the survey scene using colour-rich and photo-realistic 3D environments, reducing the need for field visits and offering models that are more understandable than raw point cloud models.
XGRIDS’ Lixel CyberColor has advanced map fusion feature - stitching drone imagery with ground-based data capture for top-to-bottom environmental capture.
These benefits help meet numerous railway-specific use-cases, as highlighted by the table below:
Use case | Benefit |
|---|---|
Tunnel scans | Spot surface damage, cracking, or deposits in detail with photorealism |
Platform refurbishment | Precisely model edges, tactile paving, and surface conditions |
Signal infrastructure | Accurately capture label colours, alignment, and small parts |
Bridge inspections | Detect corrosion, rust patches, and material defects visually and spatially |
Track geometry monitoring | Align fine LiDAR with splats to inspect wear or deformation with high certainty |
Summary
In the modern era of digital rail infrastructure, managing sprawling networks, ensuring safety compliance, and predicting asset degradation are all critical challenges.
Enter the XGRIDS L2 Pro.
With its ability to be deployed for rapid scanning, and outputting 3DGS and true colour points clouds without any additional hardware, the cutting-edge solution can revolutionise how rail operators and infrastructure teams monitor, maintain, and optimise rail systems.
This approach helps railway operators digitize their infrastructure at a new level of detail, making maintenance predictive, design more efficient, and operations safer.
heliguy™ is an XGRIDS partner. To start and scale your survey operations with XGRIDS hardware and software, contact our survey division who can help you integrate these solutions into your workflows.
