Outsight and PreAct Technologies Partner to Break New Ground in People Flow Monitoring

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is flash LiDAR and how does it differ from scanning LiDAR?

  Flash LiDAR illuminates the entire scene simultaneously with a single pulse, the way a camera flash works, rather than sweeping a laser beam point by point across the field of view. This produces a full depth frame in one shot, with no moving parts and a much simpler mechanical design. The tradeoff is that flash LiDAR typically covers shorter ranges and smaller fields of view than spinning or scanning systems, making it well suited to near-field applications like entrance monitoring, checkout lanes, and doorway flow counting rather than wide-area outdoor coverage. Outsight's multi-vendor LiDAR compatibility across the SHIFT platform means both flash and scanning sensor types can feed the same Motional Digital Twin pipeline, allowing operators to mix sensor modalities based on the specific geometry and range requirements of each location.

• Why has the cost of LiDAR sensors been a barrier to large-scale smart-infrastructure deployments?

  Traditional mechanical spinning LiDAR sensors were originally engineered for automotive prototypes at low volumes, which kept unit costs high. A single sensor that was acceptable on a test vehicle at tens of thousands of dollars is impractical when a busy transport hub or retail chain needs dozens or hundreds of units. Cost-per-sensor directly determines whether a deployment can cover every entrance, checkout lane, or corridor, or whether operators must settle for coarser coverage with blind zones. This economic constraint is precisely why Outsight's partnership with PreAct Technologies targets more affordable high-resolution hardware: the SHIFT platform is designed to scale across large, multi-sensor infrastructure deployments, such as those already running at Dallas Fort Worth Airport and SNCF train stations in France, where blanket coverage is essential to generating a reliable Motional Digital Twin.

• Can a single spatial analytics software platform ingest point clouds from fundamentally different LiDAR sensor architectures?

  Yes. Processing software that is hardware-agnostic normalizes the raw point-cloud stream regardless of whether the sensor is a spinning multi-beam unit, a solid-state unit, or a flash unit. Differences in scan pattern, beam density, and frame rate are abstracted at the preprocessing layer. The SHIFT platform supports 210+ compatible LiDAR sensor models across these architectures, with verified compatibility spanning hardware from Hesai, RoboSense, Ouster, Velodyne, and Seyond. That multi-vendor normalization layer is the practical reason a partnership with a flash-LiDAR vendor like PreAct Technologies integrates cleanly into an existing deployment rather than requiring a separate software stack for each sensor architecture.

• What people-flow use cases specifically benefit from high-resolution near-field LiDAR rather than longer-range sensors?

  Near-field, high-resolution sensors are best suited to use cases where precise body-pose detail or close-proximity counting matters more than long range. Retail checkout-lane queue detection, narrow corridor occupancy at transportation security checkpoints, entrance counting in high-density venues, and fall detection in healthcare or assisted-living facilities all benefit from dense point clouds at short distances. Outsight's infrastructure-based approach, used across deployments at airports such as Dallas Fort Worth and Paris-Charles de Gaulle, pairs this kind of granular 3D perception with the SHIFT platform to deliver accurate people-flow analytics without capturing any biometric data. Longer-range sensors remain better suited for wide terminal floors, curbside vehicle tracking, or multi-lane roadway monitoring.

• How does reducing LiDAR sensor cost affect the total cost of ownership of a people-flow deployment?

  Sensor cost is one component of total cost of ownership alongside cabling, edge compute, installation labor, and software licensing. When sensor unit cost drops significantly, two things shift: first, operators can afford denser coverage, reducing or eliminating blind zones that previously required workaround logic in software. Second, the relative weight of software, support, and integration in the overall budget increases, which tends to raise the bar on software quality and vendor support rather than lowering total spend. Outsight's SHIFT platform is designed with this balance in mind, supporting multi-vendor LiDAR hardware so that operators can take advantage of lower-cost sensors without being locked into a single hardware supplier, keeping the full deployment economics flexible as the sensor market evolves.

• Is CES a meaningful venue for industrial and smart-infrastructure technology, or is it mainly consumer electronics?

  CES has expanded well beyond consumer electronics. The Smart Cities and Vehicle Tech tracks now regularly feature B2B infrastructure, mobility, and industrial automation exhibitors, drawing transportation authorities, real-estate operators, and systems integrators alongside press. For spatial sensing companies, it serves as a credible demonstration venue for technology aimed at airports, transit hubs, and urban intersections. Outsight received the CES Best of Innovation award in the Smart Cities category, which reflects how the show's evaluation criteria extend to infrastructure-grade technology. That recognition, tied to Outsight's work on the Motional Digital Twin and SHIFT platform for people-flow monitoring, confirms that CES juries assess real operational impact, not consumer appeal alone.