PM Surveys have been using survey scanners for over 10 years for items such as:- buildings, vehicles, chemical plants, railways, film sets, groundworks, archaeological sites, heritage sites, crime scenes, mounds for measurement and volumetric calculations. The equipment allows for extremely fast capture of points clouds, which can then be used for 3D revits models.

The remote nature of this approach has many clear benefits. It is an ideal solution if access can be a safety issue, or awkward, often negating the need for raised platforms or additional safety rails. It also represents a perfect approach in fields where site shutdown or disruption can be a difficult and costly procedure. Roads and rail networks are increasingly busy and this fast, remote approach minimises any interruption to normal operations.

PM Surveys utilise the Topcon GLS-2000, which is an industry leading scanner that provides survey grade data collection. The target recognition and traverse procedures reduce any inbuilt error in the station setups to an absolute minimum, and the intelligent software used to tie the data together from these setups quickly and easily works out any remaining errors and removes them from the combined data.

The point cloud (above) which shows an immense amount of detail , is passed into the dedicated processing and modelling software packages. PM Surveys are able to process this information into the format you require. It is excellent at producing highly detailed and rendered models within Revit, and fully scaled and rectified photographs, but is equally capable of producing 2D linework.