FARO develops highly accurate and portable 3D laser scanning hardware and software solutions to collect and process pre-existing conditions into as-built data used throughout the building lifecycle. FARO’s 3D solutions integrate into the industry’s most widely used BIM workflows allowing stakeholders to make informed decisions and improve project collaboration.

For all stages of an Informed Construction BIM lifecycle, accurate and reliable 3D data of the existing structural conditions are inevitable. They form the basis of planning, production, design, evaluation and use.

ACCELERATED WORKFLOWS

FARO offers efficient on-site capture workflows in which hardware and software work seamlessly together. These workflows were already among the fastest on the market. They have now been accelerated by the release of Scene 2019 and a firmware update for the Focus scanners, FARO said in a statement.

Both have been completely overhauled. The new Scene 2019 is up to 70 per cent faster and the scanners have also been accelerated by at least 25 per cent, which in practice means savings of hours an in addition, both new releases also bring important new features.

A PERFECT TEAM

The Focus scanners are highly efficient and robust machines that can be used in difficult environments. They are fast and have a very high measuring accuracy, which can be checked and documented on site with an On-Site Compensation. The data quality is very high, also when scanning problematic surfaces. The scanners can be operated via a display or remotely with a laptop running Scene, it said.

FARO Scan of crowded hotel lobby after applying Moving Objects Filter

However, Scene is not only a control software for FARO scanners, but also processes scan data. The scans can be grouped into projects, displayed very clearly and intuitively, improved and evaluated automatically by many filters and functions.

FAST AND ENSURES SECURITY

However, the greatest added value for the user comes when the Scene software is used together with the Focus scanner. During scanning, the Focus transfers the captured data to Scene, running on a laptop. During scanning, Scene performs an on-site registration, aligns the scans against each other. A process that is usually done in the office and will take hours on large projects. This creates security because the project can be viewed on site. One can see that everything has been correctly recorded and registered. Scene performs a real registration, also Target based, not just a pre-registration. With FARO, reworking in the office is really not necessary.

SCENE SAVES TIME

The most important benefits for the user are the speed improvements by the scanner and of Scene. They mean sheer money.

The parallelisation in Scene was reworked. Scene 2019 makes a maximum use of all cores of the computer, the overall CPU usage is very high and nearly 100 per cent. The speed improvement depends on the machine, more cores means a faster processing and more saved time, the statement said.

Who works with point clouds normally uses new and efficient machines, 6 to 8 cores are the current standard. On these machines the new Scene 2019 saves 40 per cent – 65 per cent time, on 12 or 16-core machines around 70 per cent. To give an example: For a small project of 20 scans, registration on an 8-core machine takes half an hour less, on 12 cores three quarters of an hour less. For a medium-sized project of 150 scans, the time saving on an 8-core machine is 6.5 hours, for a 12-core machine over 8.5 hours!

The new firmware algorithms use the capability and hardware of the scanners much better, reducing the time required for scanning objects by at least 25 per cent. Depending on the type of project, time savings of more than 50 per cent are also possible. The values are valid for “grey scanning” as well as for “colour scanning”.

RELAXED SCANNING

When scanning squares, streets, public spaces or factories, it is impossible to avoid moving objects like people, cars or machines to pass the scanner. They leave data traces in the scan, veiling of annoying points. The cleaning of the scans was previously a laborious manual task, in the worst case the objects had to be rescanned. Scene 2019 now provides a Moving Objects Filter that automatically deletes these points. The filter can also be applied to old scan projects.

After the actual scanning, scanners capture color images that are used for coloring the scans and for evaluations. These images also can contain unwanted objects.

Until now, a complete new scan had to be performed with the following image shooting, in the hope that this time nothing would disturb image capturing. With the new Retake Photo function, unwanted images can be marked, the scanner will retake only these images again without doing a complete scan, it explained.

The Scene 2019 and Focus firmware release brings even more new functions. Scene has new manipulators for Textured Meshes, users can customise Scan Overview Maps and many smaller improvements were done.

In summary, it can be said that the new software release bundle of the Focus scanner firmware and Scene 2019 considerably accelerate the workflow from as-built to scan project and makes it the fastest in the AEC industry.