When fourth grader Luke Gutierrez was assigned Mission Soledad for his California mission project—which is a rite of passage for many schoolchildren in the state—he quickly ran into a problem. There were no clear architectural plans, few reliable images, and no accurate scale references to work from. Fortunately for Luke, he had something most students don’t: a working knowledge of 3D laser scanning and after-school access to high-end survey equipment.
So, he asked his dad, Jesse Gutierrez, who is head of 3D scanning at Modesto, California-based Original Survey Solutions, a simple, but genius question: “Why can’t we just scan it?”
That suggestion led to a full-scale terrestrial LiDAR scan of one of California’s least-documented historic missions, a father-son field trip that generated nearly 30 gigabytes of measurable data, and a story that illustrates the surprising ways that surveying can preserve history, support learning and help shape a company’s culture.
From Fourth Grade to Field Conditions
The roots of this story began during the pandemic, when Luke was his father’s constant work companion. Now he’s hooked.
“Luke’s school is right down the street from our office, so for the past few years, he’s been coming in after class and getting a lot of exposure to what we do,” says Jesse. “He’s helped run the scanner, scanned our house, scanned the office. He’s actually done the work himself. So, when he came home with his mission assignment and told me he got Mission Soledad, we looked it up to see what kind of plans or information we could find online. Turns out, the mission’s been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, and there were barely any usable plans available.”
When Jesse asked OSS President and Founder William Paul if he could use the scanner for his son’s project, the response was immediate. “I thought it was brilliant,” says Paul. “We put the firm’s resources behind it, gave Jesse the day to do it on the clock and volunteered our equipment.” OSS also donated the time for Jesse to create the deliverables…