Best Workflow for large project registration 200+ scans?

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j.lisle24
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Best Workflow for large project registration 200+ scans?

Post by j.lisle24 »

Hey everyone,
I am asking for people's opinions on our current workflow for large scan registration of 200+ scan projects.
We do scans of large coal wash plants structures with heaps of pipework and columns. We currently have a faro focus s150+ & a faro s350+ that we use at the same time.1 person each mans a scanner following a grid-like pattern on separate floors (so one scanner doesn't scan the other scanner/operator) and note which scans were taken at each floor. Once the scanning is complete scans from both scanners are processed and combined into a single project. From noting which floor is which based on scan numbers they are placed into clusters according to their floor level and register with an automatic top to top view. Once the floor levels are completely registered and happy with the statistics they are placed in a correspondence view and lined up the clusters manually to roughly where the levels would be and run a place scans cloud to cloud registration. once we are happy with the result we export the scans ordered with scan pictures to a .e57 file and place them into Autodesk recap to create a . RCP file which can be used in Autodesk Inventor. This Process can take ages in registration and processing time. We currently have bought a threadripper 32 core workstation with 128GB of ram and all scans and projects stored to local HDD (due to the size of projects) so I would think hardware shouldn't be the issue. we have tried using the checkerboards and targets to help with registration with no luck of quality or time improvements. with the large amounts of data, it takes ages in almost every step of the process. Does anyone have any input on whether this is the optimal workflow for this large of projects ( projects can be around 500-750GB for the project folder size?
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msivil
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Re: Best Workflow for large project registration 200+ scans?

Post by msivil »

Hi,

I only comment for the hardware; replace the HDD with SSD.
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Re: Best Workflow for large project registration 200+ scans?

Post by sim.herrod »

We use 4x2TB nvme SSD's on an Asus Hyper M.2 X16 PCIe Gen 4 card in a RAID array to give us the higher capacities we need for big scan/photogrammetry projects.

The workstation also has 3x2TB nvme SSD's on the motherboard.
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Re: Best Workflow for large project registration 200+ scans?

Post by landmeterbeuckx »

First : use paragraphs please. This makes reading a bit easier.

Second : ssd instead of hdd like the others say.
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Re: Best Workflow for large project registration 200+ scans?

Post by badam »

What is your current issue what would you like to improve on?

If you want to increase accuracy, or you want have more controll over registration then use cyclone reg360 instead of faro scene.

If the conversion is what you want to improve on, then I'd import a subsampled unified cloud to recap, if the panorama is essential in recap then you are screwed, but if you really just want a point cloud in rcp to model onto in inventor/autodesk products then panorama spheres are just useless and way slower to import those...
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Re: Best Workflow for large project registration 200+ scans?

Post by Dave Andrews »

Couple items that will speed things up for you. I do a lot of projects that are 400-600 scans.
1. Format your SD card and start the project in one scanner, take that card and put it into the 2nd scanner and start your scan numbers higher in the 2nd scanner, like 1000. When you download into Scene it will view it as the same scanner and everything will end up in the same project. Then you will not have to import anything into one project, a little time savings.

2. Use spheres in the field, that will increase the initial registration speed. In my experience, checker targets are not great for anything more than survey control. When you scan them at anything more than 30º it seems to skew the center of the target. If you can tie the floor together, this will help and you will have less C2C issues. C2C at the end to tighten up the registration.

3. When you are happy with registration, cleanup the project. That will create the scans with the project coordinates, then process the fls files into ReCap instead of creating E57. Unless you really need the E57 files. Both of these processes will reduce the size of the project and reduce processing time.

4. Do research into SSD. You can get some real rippers to compliment your machine, 2TB suggestion. The HHD is a roadblock

5. You might also try putting scans into smaller clusters of 10-20 scans, that sometimes helps with the processing time and can also help you if there is a problem to narrow down the problem spot.

Just some thoughts on how I approach things at times.
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Re: Best Workflow for large project registration 200+ scans?

Post by TommyMaddox »

Here's the three things you need in a nutshell

1. SSDs, We have the same 3970x, I/O is critical to large volume workflows. Our 3970X can do multi-thousand scan projects fine. Preprocessing 400 scans is done in less than an hour. There are 9 M.2 SSDs on one of these 3970x stations. The full speed read/write to one array is 27,000 MB/sec in all-core mode. We plan to move to more substantial HPC infrastructure soon due to HEDT I/O and networking limitations. HDDs are useless for any application except archival or warm storage. I have over a Petabyte of SAS HDD space leveraged for warm storage project access at a read/write rate of 7,000MB/sec.

2. Targets, spheres specifically. You need consistent rapid registration and the ability to numerically quantify your actual registration qualities. C2C stats are not reliable or consistent. C2C on large projects easily takes 5-10x longer to count as good when it comes to QAQC alone, before considering the much faster registration time

3. Survey Control. You need this to avoid banana-ing on large area projects. You also need this to align effectively to plant coordinate systems and avoid or mitigate dependency on ancient drawings and column locations/splitting. It also helps you re-scan or update areas cost and time effectively.

Credibility: At this point I suspect there are maybe 3 companies in the world doing the same or greater weekly scanning volumes than us. We have at present the largest fleet of scanners of any service company in Canada.
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