Dutch engineering company Aveco de Bondt is pioneering the use of digital technology to help upgrade the energy efficiency and structural safety of social housing in the Netherlands.
The methodology could be applied to help provide a digital footprint – called for by Dame Judith Hackitt in her review of fire safety in the wake of the Grenfell disaster – in the refurbishment of existing buildings.
Using state-of-the-art 3D laser scanners Aveco can capture every detail of a house or residential complex. The vast datasets – point clouds – collected are then processed, using Pointfuse software, into usable and accessible 3D models for onward use in the design, engineering and construction process.
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“Point clouds are not that user friendly. Therefore, we needed a way to convert the laser-captured data into 3D models that were accessible in terms of file size and usable, both in our onward workflow and by the end client,” commented Edu Jonkman, a consultant in 3D scanning and modelling at Aveco de Bondt.
“Pointfuse offered us exactly that. Using Pointfuse we can reduce the overall size of the dataset without losing any of the detail contained within. We can also create as-built models to support engineering decisions across the design, construction and management, of a range of improvement works.”
The solutions that Pointfuse is working on will speed up workflows so remedial works can be started with minimal delay.
Working on behalf of social housing providers across the Netherlands, Aveco is helping to regenerate properties in terms of sustainability: by making them energy neutral or more energy economical, and, structurally safe for buildings at risk of earthquakes.
Using laser scanning hardware from Zoller + Frohlich, Aveco captures every external detail of single occupancy buildings or more complex multi-residential structures in a fraction of the time compared to traditional survey techniques.
The vast point clouds collected – often comprising millions if not billions of individual measurements – are then processed, using Pointfuse, into segmented mesh models complete with selectable surfaces, for use in the onward workflow.
“Since introducing Pointfuse into our workflow we have transformed our offering to the market. In fact, Pointfuse has become such a fundamental part of our laser scanning work that we have multiple copies of the software running virtually around the clock,” continued Jonkman.
“While Pointfuse does not deliver the end model per se what it does provide is an integral step in the process from data capture to information delivery. You could say that for our unique recipe that Pointfuse is a key ingredient.”
Aveco de Bondt is a Dutch engineering company employing more than 300 specialist staff.
Point clouds are not that user friendly. Therefore, we needed a way to convert the laser-captured data into 3D models that were accessible in terms of file size and usable, both in our onward workflow and by the end client.
– Edu Jonkman, Aveco de Bondt
