3D Laser Scanning Helps Avert Clashes in a Power Plants New Installation

A coal-fired power plant in Wyoming was producing 2,110 megawatts of electricity per hour from four 500-foot-high generating units that serve more than a million people throughout the region. Because of its importance to the community, the plant could not afford the slightest setback in the installation of its new emission control system, which was required to comply with EPA regulations.

A gridlock of steel dominated the space, and many of the key features of the emissions system had to be located above the steel support structure in the power plant. Joseph Gidcumb, project manager at the engineering firm that was entrusted with the challenge, knew that conflicts with existing structures were likely. The plant's as-is conditions would need to be captured with a high level of precision in order to pre-plan a flawless installation, fabricate the system, and ward off potential clashes with current structures. Measuring the installation area manually would be time consuming, and it would be virtually impossible to avoid inaccuracies that could expose the engineering team to a host of issues in the field. To mitigate problems with equipment function, the team would have to leave a cushion in tolerances and be prepared to fix issues as they arose while installing the system. Those changes, however, could delay the installation and run up the tab by hundreds of thousands of dollars. To complicate matters, the engineering firm would have to rent lifts to access some of the higher locations. And this, of course, would have introduced safety concerns and prompted the need for additional Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) training.

为什么激光扫描Was the Right Fit for the Job
激光扫描是工程公司的新手，因此Gidcumb和他的团队需要保证，收集的数据将是准确的，并提供必要的信息。

"There's just a ton of steel in the plant, and they basically had to thread the needle through a 150 foot high structure," says Ryan Hacker, president of TruePoint Laser Scanning, who worked with the engineering firm on this project. "They were going to insert the new support structure down there. Besides using laser scanning, how else could they really know the installation was not going to clash with anything?"

激光扫描是工程公司的新手，因此Gidcumb和他的团队需要保证，收集的数据将是准确的，并提供必要的信息。由于虚拟设计组以前从未与Point Cloud一起使用，因此他们不知道数据的外观或确切的使用方式。Hacker说：“任何工程设计公司都会得到许多不同的新事物和技术，可以做所有这些神话般的事情。”“可以理解，他们对以前从未使用过的东西非常持怀疑态度。”

Associates at TruePoint Laser Scanning were confident that the point clouds created through laser scanning would fit seamlessly into the engineering firm's workflow and provide all the details they needed. In addition, laser scanning would save time and money. Based on TruePoint's conviction that laser scanning was the best solution and that the data collection would cost less, Gidcumb and his company took a leap of faith and put laser scanning to the test.

From Scans and Point Clouds to Clash Detection
在短短三天内，两名技术人员完成了文档，其中包括48次扫描。

TruePoint激光扫描团队使用其Leica ScanStation C10激光扫描仪收集数据，因为其长距离功能（最大300米）可容纳所需的高度和距离。此外，他们相信激光扫描仪将提供干净的数据和平滑的工作流程。他们建立了目标，当技术人员在现场周围移动时将保持原样，并用作将最终数据与工厂坐标系联系在一起的地标。目标包括各种类型的类型，例如三脚架，以及粘贴在栏杆或管道上的磁性基础，使其更容易注册并将点云数据拼接到全面的数据集中。在扫描过程中，技术人员对每个位置进行了扫描，与激光扫描仪拍摄了相同场景的照片，并捕获并标记了每个目标。

在短短三天内，两名技术人员完成了文档，其中包括48次扫描。Hacker estimates that completing the same assignment using traditional measuring devices would have taken six people about three weeks, with far less data captured in the process. He notes that the cost savings add up quickly when considering the salaries, airfares, hotel expenses, and meals for the additional time and number of people who would have been required.

TruePoint Laser Scanning imported the data into Leica Cyclone software, registered the point clouds, and provided the engineers with files in Autodesk format (PCGs) for use in their modeling software. In addition, TruePoint gave the engineering firm Leica TruViews, dimensional photographs overlaid on top of the point cloud data, which can be viewed in Leica Geosystems' free TruView panoramic viewer to provide a perspective view of the site. The Leica TruViews could be spun around to allow the engineers to look at the point clouds from different angles, giving them a better idea of how areas of the plant were related to each other than if they'd been looking at static pictures. They could also zoom in and out on specific plant features to gather data to answer detailed questions.

Since the engineering firm was based in a different state, Leica TruViews helped to familiarize them with the scan area and allowed them to return to the plant virtually as needed without traveling physically to the site. These virtual visits enabled them to provide a much faster turnaround on deliverables for the plant. In fact, within three days of receiving the point cloud data, the engineers had already found some major clashes. "We have discovered a few clashes with our structural steel which may not have ever been caught [otherwise]," says Gidcumb, "so I feel the service has already paid for itself."