Laser scanning at different stages of the project life cycle
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 10:40 am
The Russian company Trimetari Consulting has been engaged in 3D scanning, scanning data processing, consulting and project support in this area since more than 2010.
During this time, the team has implemented more than 200 projects around the world, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, India, etc.
Sergey Kotelnikov, the company’s development director, told visitors to the March BIM breakfast how usa email list laser scanning brings benefits at the construction and operation stages of a facility for all project participants, comparing it with more traditional methods of 3D measurements.
According to Sergey Kotelnikov, laser scanning can be used at any stage of the project life cycle, except for design. However, the expert noted that the use of 3D scanning during construction and operation is still somewhat of a new trend, which inspired him to speak.
Under construction
The standard methods of construction control now are traditional surveying. But what is "bad" about a surveyor?
Firstly, on complex objects he is not always able to take everything that is needed. Secondly, with manual work there is always a risk of making many mistakes that will be included in the documentation. These mistakes are not always noticed during inspection and eventually emerge at later stages, when their correction will cost much more. Thirdly, different surveyors can give different results, which will lead to disputes between the customer and the contractor about the volume of work performed.
How does laser scanning help?
Let's imagine that you need to control the construction of a hundred columns. It will take a surveyor several days to survey all the control points. With a laser scanner, the work will be fairly automated and with a minimum number of errors: all the columns can be quickly surveyed, the scan data can be automatically stitched together, and then this data can be inserted into a BIM model. Among the companies that have been using laser scanners for construction control for many years are FSK, PIK, Samolet, IPS, A-PROEKT, etc.
A successful example of a construction control project at Trimetari Consulting was the monitoring of the Lakhta Center in St. Petersburg. Over three years, the team made many executive schemes, comparing planned and actual results for the construction of metal structures, stairs, elevator shafts, etc. As a result, the negotiations between the customer and the contractor took place without disputes, since the color deviation maps and schemes made with the help of a scanner reflected the volume of work performed as accurately as possible.
Sergey Kotelnikov also separately noted one advantage of using laser scanners: with their help, you can calculate the volume of plaster before finishing. Trimetari Consulting developed a special plug-in based on Cyclone 3DR software, which allows you to calculate the volume of plaster based on the actual geometry of the walls: after processing the scan data, the program finds the most protruding point on the wall. Then, from this point, a minimum layer of plaster is laid off, an ideal plane is built, and the volume to the wall is calculated from this plane.
At the operational stage
“The most interesting, the most fashionable, the most advanced topic now is digital twins of industrial and civil facilities,” emphasized Sergei Kotelnikov.
He also shared a classification of digital twins according to their level of complexity.
Digital twins
The simplest of them is descriptive, containing a visual copy of the object. The most complex is autonomous, which could manage the enterprise. But such digital twins are still only in the future.
There have long been many software solutions on the market for creating descriptive digital twins. Among those that the Trimetari team was able to test in their work, Sergey Kotelnikov spoke about products from Hexagon, Siemens and Visionaize, as well as two Russian solutions: BIMeister and TetraVis. With the help of BIMeister, Trimetari Consulting completed the largest project for laser scanning of more than 8 km2 of multi-level industrial development. TetraVis is the company's own development, currently at the initial stage of development.
During this time, the team has implemented more than 200 projects around the world, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, India, etc.
Sergey Kotelnikov, the company’s development director, told visitors to the March BIM breakfast how usa email list laser scanning brings benefits at the construction and operation stages of a facility for all project participants, comparing it with more traditional methods of 3D measurements.
According to Sergey Kotelnikov, laser scanning can be used at any stage of the project life cycle, except for design. However, the expert noted that the use of 3D scanning during construction and operation is still somewhat of a new trend, which inspired him to speak.
Under construction
The standard methods of construction control now are traditional surveying. But what is "bad" about a surveyor?
Firstly, on complex objects he is not always able to take everything that is needed. Secondly, with manual work there is always a risk of making many mistakes that will be included in the documentation. These mistakes are not always noticed during inspection and eventually emerge at later stages, when their correction will cost much more. Thirdly, different surveyors can give different results, which will lead to disputes between the customer and the contractor about the volume of work performed.
How does laser scanning help?
Let's imagine that you need to control the construction of a hundred columns. It will take a surveyor several days to survey all the control points. With a laser scanner, the work will be fairly automated and with a minimum number of errors: all the columns can be quickly surveyed, the scan data can be automatically stitched together, and then this data can be inserted into a BIM model. Among the companies that have been using laser scanners for construction control for many years are FSK, PIK, Samolet, IPS, A-PROEKT, etc.
A successful example of a construction control project at Trimetari Consulting was the monitoring of the Lakhta Center in St. Petersburg. Over three years, the team made many executive schemes, comparing planned and actual results for the construction of metal structures, stairs, elevator shafts, etc. As a result, the negotiations between the customer and the contractor took place without disputes, since the color deviation maps and schemes made with the help of a scanner reflected the volume of work performed as accurately as possible.
Sergey Kotelnikov also separately noted one advantage of using laser scanners: with their help, you can calculate the volume of plaster before finishing. Trimetari Consulting developed a special plug-in based on Cyclone 3DR software, which allows you to calculate the volume of plaster based on the actual geometry of the walls: after processing the scan data, the program finds the most protruding point on the wall. Then, from this point, a minimum layer of plaster is laid off, an ideal plane is built, and the volume to the wall is calculated from this plane.
At the operational stage
“The most interesting, the most fashionable, the most advanced topic now is digital twins of industrial and civil facilities,” emphasized Sergei Kotelnikov.
He also shared a classification of digital twins according to their level of complexity.
Digital twins
The simplest of them is descriptive, containing a visual copy of the object. The most complex is autonomous, which could manage the enterprise. But such digital twins are still only in the future.
There have long been many software solutions on the market for creating descriptive digital twins. Among those that the Trimetari team was able to test in their work, Sergey Kotelnikov spoke about products from Hexagon, Siemens and Visionaize, as well as two Russian solutions: BIMeister and TetraVis. With the help of BIMeister, Trimetari Consulting completed the largest project for laser scanning of more than 8 km2 of multi-level industrial development. TetraVis is the company's own development, currently at the initial stage of development.