An approach to combine progressively captured point clouds for BIM update

Building information models (BIMs) provide opportunities to serve as an information repository to store and deliver as-built information. Since a building is not always constructed exactly as the design information specifies, there will be discrepancies between a BIM created in the design phase (called as-designed BIM) and the as-built conditions. Point clouds captured by laser scans can be used as a reference to update an as-designed BIM into an as-built BIM (i.e., the BIM that captures the as-built information). Occlusions and construction progress prevent a laser scan performed at a single point in time to capture a complete view of building components. Progressively scanning a building during the construction phase and combining the progressively captured point cloud data together can provide the geometric information missing in the point cloud data captured previously. However, combining all point cloud data will result in large file sizes and might not always guarantee additional building component information. This paper provides the details of an approach developed to help engineers decide on which progressively captured point cloud data to combine in order to get more geometric information and eliminate large file sizes due to redundant point clouds.