Semi-Automated BIM Reconstruction of Full-Scale Space Frames with Spherical and Cylindrical Components Based on Terrestrial Laser Scanning

Abstract

As-built building information modeling (BIM) model has gained more attention due to its increasing applications in construction, operation, and maintenance. Although methods for generating the as-built BIM model from laser scanning data have been proposed, few studies were focused on full-scale structures. To address this issue, this study proposes a semi-automated and effective approach to generate the as-built BIM model for a full-scale space frame structure with terrestrial laser scanning data, including the large-scale point cloud data (PCD) registration, large-scale PCD segmentation, and geometric parameters estimation. In particular, an effective coarse-to-fine data registration method was developed based on sphere targets and the oriented bounding box. Then, a novel method for extracting the sphere targets from full-scale structures was proposed based on the voxelization algorithm and random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm. Next, an efficient method for extracting cylindrical components was presented based on the detected sphere targets. The proposed approach is shown to be effective and reliable through the application of actual space frame structures.