Laser Scanning: Creating a Dimensional Reality

"Insufficient facts always invite danger.” – Dr. Spock

Much in the way a still-life artist records the contours of an object with her pencil, a laser scanner records spatial 3D data of an asset or assets. In the form of point-cloud data, laser scanners create a fact-based dimensional reality in digital form.

Laser scanning obliterates the need for paper-based drawings or schematics, which can be misread or may not reflect the updated as-built reality. The lack of reliable updates on paper plans is precisely the sort of insufficient fact base to which Spock alludes. The absence of accurate and complete information renders optimal decision making impossible.

What is the Difference Between 3D Laser Scanning and Dimensional Control?

Where the artists pen is like the laser scanner, recording the object’s lines and volume, the artist’s eye is the dimensional control, measuring distances and proportions so that the pen records the subject’s surface with accurate measurements and proportions.

Accurate as-built imaging allows desktop planning of modifications, maintenance and of quality checks between design data and onsite reality. Three-dimensional laser scanning generates these reliable as-built records throughout the asset lifecycle or as often as needed.

The advanced surveying technique dimensional control works in tandem with the 3D laser scanning to record accurate dimensions, ensuring that the as-builts reflect the reality both in terms of spatial arrangement but also in terms of actual measurements.

What 3D Laser Scanning and Dimensional Control Actually Does

Together with dimensional control, laser scans generate point-cloud data that specialized software uses to create a 3D model of the facility, area or asset. Laser scans collect data that is processed by software and converted into useful outputs. These product outputs are the images and models with which the engineer, manager or other user interfaces.

Such 3D models lend efficiencies and ease to the design of new piping or other components because the dimensional design space is clear.

As per the wise words of Spock, fact-based working has safety implications, too. Laser scanning and dimensional control remove room for interpretation: spatial information is complete and obvious, meaning that people can anticipate and avoid potential hazards including unnecessary downtime owing to incorrect calculations, or the reduction of hot work on a live asset.

What Are the Benefits of 3D Laser Scanning and Dimensional Control?

The specific benefits of 3D laser scanning and dimensional control are wide ranging. When used with sophisticated software solutions, the suite of realized benefits includes the following:

• True visibility of size conditions translates to: fewer change orders, reduced risks of schedule changes and for repeat onsite measuring, fewer required site visits and improved safety.
• Design, fabrication and hookup quality assurance wherein detailed dimensional tolerances are available upfront, taking advantage of pre-fabricated items, when available, and ensuring clash-free installations.
• High-confidence project management, as well as resource planning and control, streamlining delivery and response speed.
• Simplified communication including the basis for more accurate pricing models and overall supply-chain integration.

Surveyors As Artists of Dimensional Control

Andy Wilson, Dimensional Control Manager at MODS brings perspective as to the human element of laser scanning capabilities. Such techniques are well and good, and with powerful software able to convert raw point-cloud data into accurate models, it’s always important to bear in mind that the output is only as good as the input.

“Anyone can buy a scanner and push play,” says Andy, “but as my experience has proven, a surveyor’s mindset and experience can often see things others cannot."

What Andy means is that hardware tools such as laser scanner still require human inputs, and those human inputs must be informed and of a specialist mindset in order to accommodate the nuances of each use-case scenario. Surveyors like Andy are the artists in the equation, ensuring that the measurement techniques and controls are accurate and quality assured.