by James Hall » Wed Mar 10, 2010 5:43 pm
Greetings Jeff.
As you have probably discovered 3D modeling and using laser scanners require more then a few hours of instruction and a book to learn and turn around jobs in a cost effective manner.
If you can get to some training seminars that can help, also knowing that not all the instructions the Cyclone manual are as helpful as they could be. Practice is the only way to know if something will work.
The best piece of general advice I could offer to someone starting out is to know what your client is expecting as a deliverable for the separate disciplines you listed.
Knowing that your client may only need a rough surface model for hydrology to fill in the gaps in a USGS Topo map can make your life easier and there’s. The files you give them may only need one percent of the data your scanner can collect. Converting that 10 million point file in to a sample grid with a point every 10 feet may be all they need and can save you time in the office.
The deliverable should be well defined and understood by both parties. Find out how your models, point files or surface files will be used.
I have worked on architectural projects, urban streetscapes, building facades, and scanning bridges. Waste water treatment plants are not something I’ve had to tackle yet.
Some of our clients only want 2D plans and elevations turned around on compressed time tables. Other want modeled structures to run interference checks on. Then again still others what models compatible with Revit and various 3D BIM packages for rendering. All theses require different times to process.
Since you are new to 3D I would suggest getting a good grasp on changing UCS’s and how they affect State plane coordinate systems.
Learn which objects can be edited in Cyclone and transferred back and forth to other cad packages for editing. Some operations will turn things like pipes and I-beams into mesh objects wile other will not transfer at all.
