In recent years, portable Mobile Mapping Systems (MMSs) are emerging as valuable survey instruments for fast and efficient mapping of both internal and external environments. The aim of this work is to assess the performance of a commercial handheld MMS, Gexcel HERON Lite, in two different outdoor applications. The first is the mapping of a large building, which represents a standard use-case scenario of this technology. Through the second case study, that consists in the survey of a torrent reach, we investigate instead the applicability of the handheld MMS for natural environment monitoring, a field in which portable systems are not yet widely employed. Quantitative and qualitative assessment is presented, comparing the point clouds obtained from the HERON Lite system against reference models provided by traditional techniques (i.e., Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Photogrammetry).
