PointCab

The Interdisciplinary Competence Centre (Interdisziplinäres Kompetenzzentrum Altbau (InKA)) of the university of Siegen accomplished the registration of the whole geometry of a factory of an industrial firm by means of laser scanning. The factory covers an area - including buildings and other elements - of about 10,000 square metres. All supply pipes and disposal lines had also to be documented which resulted in a great amount of laser scans.

The goal of the scanning was to create a 3D model of the factory in the CAD system ArchiCAD. As the foundation for this modeling, sections were created through the entire point cloud.

Facts:

• area: ca. 10.000 square metres
• laser scanner: FARO Photon 80
• result: 80 scans with a total size of about 7 GB
• goal: modelling in ArchiCAD

Why PointCab?

• generation of top views, cross sections and longitudinal sections
• easy and intuitive handling
• definition of section views at any places desired -> result: dimensionally accurate pixel image having an accuracy of 2 mm per pixel
• reduction of the amount of data to a level acceptable to CAD systems
• data exchange formats are supported by almost all CAD programs available on the market
• division of the cross section through the point cloud into several “tiles” -> amount of data can be adjusted depending on the ability of the software