用3D激光扫描翻新复杂结构

The project engineer at a wastewater treatment plant in Tampa/Florida was faced with a challenging renovation – demolishing one of their pump houses and replacing the piping in the plant’s digesters. While existing two-dimensional drawings documented the pipes, they did not include the level of detail necessary to plan the reconstruction in a way that guaranteed the new installations would not clash with existing structures.

项目工程师及其团队需要对彼此缠绕，更改高程并在各种植物结构中互相缠绕的管道迷宫进行透彻的了解。为了评估水箱的容量，他们需要在水箱内进行测量，其中包括将填充线代表到水箱的最高部分，以及水在塔楼中退出的位置。最后，他们想要一个整体场地计划，展示建筑足迹及其彼此之间的关系。该文件将帮助他们了解水流的动态，确定消化器能力，在水塔中建立联系点，并就植物的修复做出明智的决定。

Point clouds, 3D visualisations and models provide valuable insight on a complex network of pipes and valves.

To complete the documentation manually would not only be complex, but it could also be dangerous. First, because the water tower was 53 metres (175 feet) tall, it was difficult to access. In addition, there was the ever-present risk of falling and drowning when taking manual measurements of wastewater digesters, open vats that are used to stabilise the solids removed from the wastewater during treatment.

由于复杂性以及植物周围操纵的物流，手动文档也将很耗时，例如，在某些地方狭窄到约41厘米（16英寸）的时装秀。大约两周的时间来进行测量，可能需要一支由四名工程师组成的团队，他们仍然只能收集最少的数据。

From difficult and dangerous to simple and safe with laser scanning
项目工程师意识到激光扫描可能是解决他们问题的方法。在寻找服务提供商之后，他联系了Truepoint Laser Scanning总裁Ryan Hacker。由于激光扫描仪有条不紊，快速捕获代表其范围内所有对象的数据点，因此它们可以轻松捕获复杂的管道和植物布局。此外，由于真正的点激光扫描团队选择使用Leica ScanStation C10，因此他们能够在300米（980英尺）范围内准确记录建筑物和结构，同时在一秒钟内捕获数千个数据点。这种远程功能意味着技术人员可以安全地从时装秀上扫描消化厂的内墙，并从地面上记录水塔，从而消除了对人升降机和驱逐设备的需求。

两名Truepoint技术人员确定他们需要在36个位置进行扫描。激光扫描可捕获视线的所有内容。但是，为了确保详尽的文档，他们从多个角度进行了扫描。每次扫描都代表了拼图的片段，稍后会员会将其拼凑在一起。尽管项目工程师最初计划了一个基于多个项目的项目，以便在更换特定管道和阀门的同时继续操作，但TruePoint能够在一天之内完成数据收集。快速过程还通过减少对几个文档项目的需求节省了资金。此外，由于所有数据都可以立即获得，因此工程师可以制定完整的计划，以减少对未来变更订单的需求。扫描产生了一系列点云，三二维数据集代表该设施的扫描对象。回到Truepoint的总部，随着团队将多点云导入Leica Cyclone软件，工作流程逐渐降低了节奏。然后，为了完整地了解他们组装拼图的植物，记录了点云，并将它们连接到单个数据集中。 They sent the 3D representation to the engineers at the water treatment plant who also use Leica Cyclone software. The engineers imported the point clouds into their Autodesk AutoCAD software to create a model. In addition, TruePoint provided Leica TruViews that give a panoramic 3D view of the scanned area. The TruViews are intuitive for people to use; they can easily zoom in to see points of interest and look at them from all angles.

Taking measurements and analysing the data in the office
The engineers were able to scrutinise the data from the comfort of their offices and calculate factors such as the necessary rise over run for the pipes, water flow, and specific measurements. Having all the data at their fingertips enabled them to give a fabricator the exact size and shape of the new pipes they needed. Once they received the pipes, all they had to do on the site was to assemble them; thus, they saved money on manual labour time. As a result, the engineers at the water treatment plant were able to plan their renovations more accurately and comprehensively, increase safety, reduce costs and achieve their goals more quickly. Due to the success of this project, the project manager has now incorporated laser scanning into additional projects.

Written by Bruce Bowditch