Reality Capture (RC) Technology for Drywall Installation: A Scan-toPrefab Approach

Abstract

Drywall, also known as gypsum board, sheetrock, or plasterboard, is a widely used building sheathing material in the US and Canada to create interior walls and ceilings. Typically, the design and construction documents of a project exclude detailed information about the layout of drywall sheets on interior surfaces. Such information is left to the drywall installation crews to determine solely based on their experience. This inconsistent approach often results in substantial rework and waste of material in the field. The construction industry has seen a significant increase in the adoption of Reality Capture (RC) technology in recent years, with the goal of improving the quality and productivity of various construction activities. This research aims to investigate the implementation of RC technology, explicitly Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Structure from Motion (SfM, also referred to as photogrammetry), in drywall installation. The research team has developed a framework that utilizes RC tools to capture the as-built information of the framing members of interior walls and penetrations of the MEP systems and uses these RC data to develop prefabricating shop drawings in a Building Information Modeling (BIM) platform for drywall cutting and installation. This framework has been tested and studied on active construction project sites. The preliminary findings indicate that this framework has the potential to lead to a more precise and efficient drywall installation process. This paper also proposes a process model for the execution of the proposed framework for improving drywall installation.