Case Study
2023 | 3 min read
Fund 3D Scanning and Modelling is an engineering firm, based in the Netherlands, with more than 20 years of combined experience in dimensioning, 3D scanning and construction inspections. Its extensive client base includes contractors, prefab concrete companies, architects, steel and facade builders, installation technology companies, government, and land registry.
The company, founded by Patty and Thomas Hagg, and Bas Haselhorst in 2019, is driven by quality and accuracy. In recognition that modern designs require pinpoint accurate dimensions, they provide expertise in the field of sizing and scanning. With this focus in mind, they are always on the lookout for new technologies to keep them at the top of their game.
Most of Fund’s clients come to them with the same problem. They are doing complex renovations but are working off very old drawings. Over time buildings alter, either through human updates or through structural changes as they age, meaning that these old drawings are often out of date, leaving the client open to errors in their new designs.
In order to create these new designs from an accurate starting point, they need to capture the existing structure via 3D scanning, and this is where Fund 3D Scanning and Modelling come in to help.
Using state-of-the-art laser scanners, the team capture every detail of the building which results in a huge dataset, a point cloud, often many gigabytes in size. This in turn creates the next challenge, how to convert this into a usable and accessible format for onward use in the design, engineering, and construction process.
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Right from the beginning we knew that PointFuse would be an integral part of our business and so we ensured that we had this in place from Day 1.
Bas Haselhorst, Managing Director, Fund 3D Scanning and Modelling
Bas Haselhorst, Managing Director, remembered, from his days at a previous company, that PointFuse had been an integral part of their workflow solution, reducing point clouds by, on average, 90% in size. By converting the point cloud into a lightweight mesh model, scans could now be quickly and easily viewed, classified, and shared. He knew that PointFuse would be an essential tool for his new company.
“Right from the beginning we knew that PointFuse would be an integral part of our business and so we ensured that we had this in place from Day 1.”
He soon started offering this solution to his clients and is thrilled with its success. A current customer, Vink Bouw is one such example. This construction company is working on an exciting new project, converting the ‘Three Kings’, a former sewage treatment plant in Amsterdam, into a cinema, offices, restaurants, and a gym. Nervous about basing this adventurous renovation project on old drawings they secured the services of Fund 3D Scanning and Modelling to help them.
During summer 2023 the team scanned the 3 towers with a highly detailed Zoller and Frohlich stationary scanner, along with a DJI Meflick drone. The resulting point cloud was a massive 23GB in size. In an attempt to make the file size manageable, they removed any extraneous detail such as the grass surrounding it and the rooftop platform which was not going to be part of the new renovations. This helped to reduce it down to 13GB, but it was still too large for use in onward workflows. The client also needed the point cloud to be converted to an IFC file, in order to use it within their Solibri software for comparison and clash detection, but this could not be done at this size.
This is where PointFuse became invaluable. After Bas ran the 13GB dataset through the PointFuse software, and integrated classification tool, it was greatly reduced in size to just 181MB!
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Without PointFuse none of this would be possible. By converting the point cloud into a manageable mesh model, we are now able to create an IFC file, which in turn means the client can run clash detection in Solibri – a vital stage in the design and build process.
Bas Haselhorst, Managing Director, Fund 3D Scanning and Modelling
At this size, Bas was now able to export the scanned data as an IFC file, before handing this over to the client. This is critical to the project as it now enables Vink Bouw to load this into Solibri in order to overlap the designs, created from the Revit and Tekla drawings, with the as-built reality capture. By comparing the models at this early stage, any errors can be detected and solved before the renovation begins. This saves a considerable amount of time and money downstream in the project with the challenges of rework being avoided.
“Without PointFuse none of this would be possible. By converting the point cloud into a manageable mesh model, we are now able to create an IFC file, which in turn means the client can run clash detection in Solibri – a vital stage in the design and build process.”
Artist’s impression of how the silos may look like once complete
Workflow that Fund 3D Modelling and Construction followed to fulfil their client’s requirements of getting the original scan data into Solibri.
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