Many see handheld scanning as revolutionizing the construction sector. The Dot Product handheld scanner and Faro Freestyle introduced in 2013 were among the first multi-sensor devices (IR laser and photo cameras) targeted at professionals, especially in the engineering and construction sector (mm accuracy at 2 m). They employed laser scanning technology similar to the Microsoft Kinetic (2010). For rapid site documentation, Matterport allows you to scan a floor of a building in an hour or less, upload the captured data to the cloud (Amazon Web Services) and a couple of hours later have a fully-rendered 3D walk-through that can be accessed over the web. It was originally targeted on the real estate sector but recently has been experiencing growing application in the construction industry. The Leica Geosystems BLK360 captures full-color panoramic images overlaid on a high accuracy point cloud (mm accuracy at 60 m). It weighs only about a kilogram. One-button operation means this is almost a consumer device- anyone who can operate an iPad can use the imaging laser scanner. But it is a professional device - it collects 360,000 points per second and has a range of 60 meters with 4 mm accuracy - with a very low but still professional price. Recently I came across a startup called HoloBuilder that only requires a consumer grade 360° camera and a smart phone app to document a construction project working with uploaded floor plans and walking through a job site placing the camera and tripod in the middle of each room to take a series of 360° photos.
I just came across a product focussed on construction that lowers the bar still further. Now ordinary smart phones can be used to capture the status of construction work at a very granular level in real-time. A mobile+cloud application CTBIM created by BuilDATAnalytics enables each subcontractor on a project to document each step of their work with little additional effort.
Design plans are preloaded with all room and interior space locations. All assets associated with each room are in the CTBIM system organized according ot the scope of each trade's contract. For installing doors or windows for example, the height, width, material, partition, thickness, hardware and other specifications are catalogued in CTBIM for for all doors and windows associated with each room. This information is available on a subcontractors smart phone whether there is connectivity or not.
For example, a subcontractor responsible for installing door or window assemblies can simply click on the task on a smart phone and take a picture. This provides a detailed time-stamped (GPS stamped for civil projects) record of each subcontractors progress which can be used for a variety of purposes. For example, it makes it possible to track construction progress at a very granular level, identify productivity issues that threaten the schedule, and provide documentation that could protect subcontractors if facilities are damaged later in the project. It also means that the owner or an owner's agent such as a facilities manager can see the design page where the specific window or door assembly appears, the picture of what the door or window looked like at the time of installation, the manufacturer specification sheet, operations and maintenance manuals, and other documentation relating to each building element. All of this information is recorded in the CTBIM database during construction and for the lifetime of the building or infrastructure.
This enables CTBIM to follow construction progress in near real time with location-specific, real time photographic or videographic evidence of work completed, real-time calculations of percentage of work completed, real time calculations of percentage of budget dollars earned per contractor, real time update on the number of assets required for the project and the number of assets on hand, on demand reports of every asset installed in a structure, the dates of installation, and the ability to drill down to identify the person responsible for the installation activity, room by room comparison of how long a build or installation activity took to complete, and data that can be used use to advise owners of the number of crew members required to accelerate build activities to avoid schedule creep, among other things. CTBIM is focussed on providing owners actionable insights into the activities of each field crew responsible for some aspect of the build. Since virtually every subcontractor already has a handheld smartphone, the CTBIM application could dramatically impact subcontractor business processes - improve productivity, remove risk, and provide greater transparency, critical for an industry prone to litigation.
It is really incredible how quickly consumer technology such as Kinetic and mobile handheld devices equipped with sensors, cameras and apps are being adapted for the construction industry. As earlier users of the Dot Product scanner at Bechtel forecasted, these devices are beginning to revolutionize many aspects of how we do construction.