On the Use of the OptD Method for Building Diagnostics

Abstract

Terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) measurements can be used to assess the technical condition of buildings and structures; in particular, high-resolution TLS measurements should be taken in order to detect defects in building walls. This consequently results in the creation of a huge amount of data in a very short time. Despite high-resolution measurements typically being needed in certain areas of interest, e.g., to detect cracks, reducing redundant information on regions of low interest is of fundamental importance in order to enable computationally efficient and effective analysis of the dataset. In this work, data reduction is made by using the Optimum Dataset (OptD) method, which allows to significantly reduce the amount of data while preserving the geometrical information of the region of interest. As a result, more points are retained on areas corresponding to cracks and cavities than on flat and homogeneous surfaces. This approach allows for a thorough analysis of the surface discontinuity in building walls. In this investigation, the TLS dataset was acquired by means of the time-of-flight scanners Riegl VZ-400i and Leica ScanStation C10. The results obtained by reducing the TLS dataset by means of OptD show that this method is a viable solution for data reduction in building and structure diagnostics, thus enabling the implementation of computationally more efficient diagnostic strategies.

Application of TLS Technology for Documentation of Brickwork Heritage Buildings and Structures

“…Using data acquired by the TLS, a computation of the distance between a point cloud of the building's wall and a reference plane was conducted. This is a common approach to deviation analysis [46]. The reference plane is determined from the points belonging to the wall using the mean sum error (MSE) method presented by Chen [47].…”

Research and TLS (LiDAR) Construction Diagnostics of Clay Brick Masonry Arched Stairs

“…The TLS (terrestrial laser scanning) measurements using 3D scanners are starting to be used for structural diagnosis. Three-dimensional LiDAR (light detection and ranging) scanners have revolutionized the capability and accuracy of geometry measurements in construction, shipbuilding and other areas of science and technology [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. TLS can be used to measure damage to the surface layers of materials, including bricks and mortar, as well as to track moisture in structures [33,[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49].…”

The Use of Low-Cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the Process of Building Models for Cultural Tourism, 3D Web and Augmented/Mixed Reality Applications

“…Currently, several commercial applications are available in the market. They offer advanced algorithms for creating, analyzing, and further visualizing building models [ 33 ]. There are many studies in the literature concerning the use of VR/AR/MR for the visualization of historical buildings [ 34 ].…”