Scan to BIM Success on the First Try

How Nijhuis Saur Industries completed its first ever industrial scan-to-BIM project 66% faster with Edgewise, saving $20,000 of tedious modeling work.  

Meet Ted Page

Ted heads the UK Digital Design group of Nijhuis Saur Industries based in Cornwall, UK. Historically, the company had focused primarily on design, manufacture, build, and maintenance services. However, over his 23-year career in the AEC industry, he had never worked on a scan-to-BIM project.

Looking for new ways to innovate and expand his department’s service offerings, Ted chose to venture into the exciting world of laser scanning and as-built modeling. Soon after, they landed their first project.

About The Project

Goal: Scan, model, and re-design a disused seven-story wastewater treatment plant in continental Europe

Ted’s Mission: Deliver a 3D point cloud and Revit model of the facility to enable concept design for repurposing the plant

This highly complicated industrial site would prove difficult for even the most seasoned BIM professionals. That coupled with a stringent project timeline would leave many in Ted’s position shaking in their boots

Challenges

A Densely Packed Facility

Thousands of steel beams, pipes, and repetitive open spaces to be modeled

Limited  Documentation

Only 2D as-built documentation dating back to 1996 was available

COVID Travel Restrictions

COVID travel restrictions prevented the team from visiting the physical site

A Tight Project Timeline

A single month to go from scan to completion of project deliverables

Challenges:

A Densely Packed Facility

Thousands of steel beams, pipes, and repetitive open spaces to be modeled

Limited  Documentation

Only 2D as-built documentation dating back to 1996 available

COVID Travel Restrictions

COVID travel restrictions prevented the team from visiting the physical site

A Tight Project Timeline

A single month to go from scan to completion of project deliverables

The Winning Workflow

Phase 1: Data Capture & Registration

Third party scanning and data processing from a team in the local country

The third-party team scanned the site over five days using FARO S150 scanners. The 180 GB point cloud was then registered and transferred to the Nijhuis team.

Phase 2:

Automated As-Built Modeling Using EdgeWise

Ted modeled all the steel and MEP from the registered data set using EdgeWise’s automated and semi-automated tools in just three weeks.

Here's How:

Ted gained a massive head-start modeling MEP elements with just one click

EdgeWise’s automated feature extraction technology enabled Ted to simply click a button, walk away, and come back to a significant portion of the piping already extracted.

He easily completed MEP modeling and verified extraction accuracy

EdgeWise’s Easy Connect, semi-automated extraction, and QA tools allowed Ted to finalize the MEP extraction in a few easy steps and verify that the elements fit the point cloud precisely.

He easily completed MEP modeling and verified extraction accuracy

EdgeWise’s Easy Connect, semi-automated extraction and QA tools allowed Ted to finalize the MEP extraction in a few easy steps and verify that the elements fit the point cloud precisely.

He breezed through structure modeling

Modeling thousands of steel members manually is taxing. Ted took advantage of EdgeWise’s Pattern Extract and QA tools to semi-automate the modeling of structure in the plant and ensure each element was accurately extracted.  

He also knew that a lighter point cloud = More efficient downstream modeling

Ted conveniently exported out points of objects that couldn’t be modeled in EdgeWise using the software’s Remainder Cloud Smart Export to work with a lighter point cloud and expedite the extraction of custom elements.

He also knew that a lighter point cloud = More efficient modeling

Ted was able to conveniently export out points of objects that couldn’t be modeled in EdgeWise using the software’s Remainder Cloud Smart Export to work with a lighter point cloud and expedite the extraction of MEP and steel elements.  

Phase 3:

Clean Up In Revit & Project Delivery

Ted completed a lion’s share of the modeling in EdgeWise before passing the file to his colleague to finish in Revit.

By leveraging EdgeWise’s automated modeling capabilities, the team successfully delivered this impressive model in just 3 weeks!

The Bottom Line:

EdgeWise reduced the project schedule by 6 weeks and helped Nijhuis save $20,000 💰

"I can't praise EdgeWise enough. It was so intuitive to learn. This project was essentially me doing EdgeWise and then my colleague doing Revit afterward -- goes to show you that you don't need a team of 20 people to get this kind of job done."
Ted Page
Head of Digital Design

Discover how to reduce the cost of tedious manual modeling on your next scan-to-BIM project.