ON THE SOLIDIFICATION OF POINT CLOUDS FOR BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING, AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY APPLICATIONS IN CONSTRUCTION

The Green Agenda has led to less demolition and more retrofitting and extending existing buildings. This has had a knock-on effect as contracts for this type of work now require Autodesk Revit 3D models with Virtual Reality and Augmented
Reality. These extra elements using immersive technologies make it easy for clients to envision the changes, aesthetics including colour schemes, impact of lighting, and provide enhanced visualisation on the revised spatial impact of retrofitted extensions to buildings. This paper looks at the revised workflow required from gathering data using a scanner, through producing a point
cloud, solidifying it, to bringing solidied elements into Revit as families. It examines user perceptions of five pieces of software used to solidify the models. Furthermore, it examines alternative uses of 360 degree images gathered by a scanner alongside the point cloud in the production of Augmented Reality tours used for various purposes in Thinglink.