Charlotte: A modern tool for cave surveying

The future of cave surveying is a full 3D scan, as automatic as possible, capturing all morphologically relevant details. However, the vast majority of cavers are still using tools designed more than 15 years ago. The advancements in tools for architects, CAD designers, programmers of VR and robotics could be helpful also for the caving community. That’s why Charlotte, a cheap DIY 2.5D scanner designed for cave surveying, was developed and built. To demonstrate its capabilities, a new survey of Grotta Regina del Carso cave (cad. nr. 2328/4760VG), the biggest cave in the Gorizia Karst, has been realized and published. The new scanner is based on the same traditional cave surveying techniques, familiar to all cavers, and features a LiDAR to capture the exact cave morphology. The results are so realistic they can be used for 3D animations, physics simulations, or even 3D printing. The prototype of the new tool costs less than 400€ (EURO; as of December 2022). All the source code and schematics are released as Free and Open Source. Cavers are encouraged to fork the project on Github and provide new functionalities, to keep up with new technology available and the needs of caving scientific research all around the world.