Point Cloud to BIM for Educational Facilities
Industry: Surveying and engineering industry Location: Australia
Technology & software used
- Revit, Recap
- One of the most reputed surveying company based in London, UK, approached Hi-Tech for its BIM requirements. The client had surveyed an educational center and wanted to convert the point cloud data to BIM. Almost 300 scans were done to capture every section of the building, .pcg input files were provided and modeling architecture and structure disciplines with 10mm accuracy with an LOD 300 was requested.BIM is increasingly seen by large building owners as the best way to document building data. The capabilities of BIM are further leveraged to achieve greater efficiencies in facility management, increase occupant comfort and reduce the cost and time required for renovations and refurbishments. Scan to BIM is the most accurate and convenient way to create a BIM for an ‘As Built’ environment for large buildings.
Outcome & benefits
- Renovation for a major section of the educational facility became easy, the basic structure was retained and the client saved around 20% costs on renovation due to the availability of well documented information.
- Information rich, intelligent BIM, provided a thorough documentation of the “as built structure”.
- This further improved the operations and management of the educational center.
Related services
This case study draws on ASTCAD’s BIM services. We also deliver:
- 3d scanning services — for related project requirements
- Bim architectural services — for complementary deliverables
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ASTCAD is Australia’s trusted CAD design and drafting partner since 2010. We deliver to AS 1100, AS 4100, AS 3600 and AS/NZS 3000 across mechanical, structural, civil, architectural and electrical disciplines.
Point cloud to BIM for educational facilities: the approach
Educational facilities are a distinct scan-to-BIM problem: campuses accumulate decades of undocumented modifications, occupancy windows for scanning are narrow, and the models feed refurbishment programs where services coordination happens above suspended ceilings nobody has looked inside since installation. Our point cloud to BIM for educational facilities workflow schedules capture around school holidays, prioritises the ceiling-space and plant-room data the retrofit designers actually need, and models to an LOD agreed against the refurbishment scope rather than a generic standard.
What education clients receive
Deliverables include the Revit model with structure, architecture and visible services at agreed LOD, floor plans and sections cut from the model for the consultants still working in 2D, and a modelling report documenting assumptions where ceiling access or occupied rooms limited the scan. For multi-building campuses we deliver progressively, building by building, so design work starts on the first block while capture continues on the last.
Schools, universities and their facility managers use these models for refurbishment design, asset management and compliance documentation. If your campus has a capital works program and no reliable drawings, a scoped scan-to-BIM engagement on the first project building typically pays for itself in avoided site remeasurement alone.
Budget-wise, education clients typically fund this work from capital programs where a fixed scan-to-model fee per building suits approval processes better than hourly engagements — and we quote it that way. Where a campus master plan needs all buildings eventually, staging capture across school terms spreads the cost across budget years while the earliest-modelled buildings start returning value immediately in their refurbishment design programs.
One further note for asset managers weighing the investment: the scan data itself outlives the immediate project. A campus captured for this year’s refurbishment holds the record for next year’s compliance audit and the decade’s master plan, and remodelling from archived clouds costs a fraction of rescanning.
Independent schools and university facility teams have used models from this program for tender documentation as well — issuing scan-accurate drawings to refurbishment tenderers removes the measurement risk premium from every submitted price, a saving that lands on the very next project the model touches.