PointCloud to CAD

Please post any tips or advice you have in general relating to laser scanning either whilst onsite or office based.
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tbeauchemin
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PointCloud to CAD

Post by tbeauchemin »

Hi Community :D
I’m a graphic designer working in “Serious Gaming” for an engineering company. We provide “Virtual Plant” to our client so they can train their “Field Operator” and learn to do Emergency ShutDown, Health&Safety Procedure, stuff like that.

Recently, we have been talking with a client that has several plants (Think big Petroleum refinery, stuff like that) but no CAD files due to the age of those.

Simply said we need a way to digitize those plants and output CAD files. After that, those CAD file get completely rework in 3D so that it better represent reality.

Now our needs are a bit special, since we don’t actually need the accuracy engineers normally need.

So I end up on this forum, and was amazed discovered many Point Cloud to CAD solution. Clearedge, LFM, Trimble, etc…

So I need a bit of help to sort thing out…
- Considering that accuracy would be the least of our requirement, what machine would you buy ?
- And what software would you use ?
- Is there other technology that we could investigate? (Photogrammetry didn’t produce good results)

Thank you for any help you can provide ☺

PS. Since I’ve made it clear that we are NO expert in that field…. We would also be interested into a “turnkey solution”…
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Re: PointCloud to CAD

Post by Matt Young »

Hi Thierry, welcome to the Forum :D

I think that you will find a multitude of information here that will help you with what your trying to achieve.

There are many software packages available for modelling plant using laser scan data.

If your interested in companies that can provide the laser scan data for you, or create models for you then you will also find then here.
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Mark Senior
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Re: PointCloud to CAD

Post by Mark Senior »

Hi Thierry

We've actually been working with a number of companies in the same field as you described and that require fast visualization of their point clouds in CAD formats that came be import and viewed in a variety of 3rd party CAD packages.

We're releasing a stand alone version of our Pointfuse software at InterGeo in Berlin that automatically converts the points to vector format, happy to give you a test prior to the release to see if it fits with your work flow.

Mark
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Re: PointCloud to CAD

Post by max72 »

Just a personal note from a newbie:
Converting a point cloud to a CAD model is not an easy task, and there is not (yet) a way to streamline it.
Not sure if there will ever be...
An alternative approach is to use the point cloud as it is. You can find the big guys have tools to simplify the use of a point cloud with no intermediate work, and many visualization tools are tailored to point cloud.
So question is: do you really need a 3D cad model?
For instance navisworks manage and pointools allow interference analysis between the as built point cloud and the 3D CAD of the machine in project.
You can visualize the point cloud using Arena 4D, and make great movies in no time (pointcloud should do that too).... Or you can use Recap, or many other tools that are around. Check the thread about Unity3D and point cloud too..
I would venture to say that a day of laser scanning means a couple of days of post process to have a decent point cloud (part of it is automated..). To obtain a decent 3D model you need probably another 3-5 days at least, and depending on your need possibly much more...


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Re: PointCloud to CAD

Post by bhohimer »

Hi Thierry, welcome to the forum! This place is THE resource for information and expertise related to laser scanning and associated technologies.

First off I should mention that my expertise is around Faro products and software, but there are many others out there that are probably viable solutions for you.

We are putting together a project for a client right now that is similar to yours, but on a smaller scale. We are building an interactive users/training manual for ambulance concept vehicles. We have captured the laser scan data and are using Faro's WebShare Cloud application as an interface for the users to receive training on the vehicles. The software allows for text annotations to be placed within the captured scene that can link to any type of resources including YouTube videos, pdfs, etc.

Feel free to get in touch with me if you would like to learn more about our solution and to discuss how it may fit into your project.
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Re: PointCloud to CAD

Post by tbeauchemin »

WOW,
I didn't expect that much reply, I'm more than glad. :D
To answer some question:

- We don't need a CAD per say, our main goal is to have a decent 3D model. For us, that mean clean geometry, good normals, low polygon etc.... So tessellation is out of the question as a final model, but could easily serve as a Blueprint to remodel everything...

- We are using the Unity Engine (And HoneyWell UniSim for the simulation). I didn't know they could work with point cloud, I'll check it out....

Here are my main questions, given the choice, you would go with what scanner and what software ?
Faro & VRMesh ?

As I said... Our goal is mainly to extract the data... Not much engineering...
Thank you again for all your answer,
Bare with a simple graphic designer :P
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Re: PointCloud to CAD

Post by Andrej »

Hi

As you want a 3D Model you can use different scanner to do the field capture. My personal opinion is that if you spent the time and money in capturing the whole plant why not do it so you can use it for engineering too.

This by site modelling is still very labour intensive Kubit and Clearedge are the more sophisticated tools to model however they still require a lot of manual input.
The other way would be mashing however this would not give you the clean geometry etc... as you outlined.

As pointed out by other this is not streamlined and you have a lot of different options.

Andrej
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