Automated Verification of Building Components Using BIM Models and Point Clouds

One of the most important parts of construction work is the verification of the geometry of the parts of structures and buildings constructed. Today this procedure is often semi- or fully automated. The paper introduces an approach for the automated verification of parts of buildings, by comparing the design of a building (as-planned model), derived from a Building Information Model (BIM) in an Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) exchange format to a terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point cloud (as-built model). The approach proposed has three main steps. The process begins with the acquisition of information from the as-planned model in the IFC exchange format; the second step is the automated (wall) plane segmentation from the point cloud. In the last step, the two models mentioned are compared to determine the deviations from the design, and the as-built wall flatness quantification is also executed. The potential of the proposed algorithm is shown in a case-study.