Semi-automated creation of IFC bridge models from point clouds for maintenance applications

Abstract

Bridge maintenance activities benefit from digital models, provided in the interoperable IFC format. Such a model, enriched with up-to-date information, is an enabler for a wide range of applications. It opens new perspectives in asset information management. However, the manual creation of a digital replica, representing the actual state of the asset from point cloud data, is time-consuming. Consequently, process automation is of particular interest. This paper proposes a systematic, semi-automatic approach for creating IFC bridge models from point clouds. It introduces new methods for semantic segmentation and 3D shape modeling. A case study demonstrates the feasibility of the process in practice. Compared to other solutions, proposed methods are robust when dealing with incomplete point clouds.