stairway to heaven? Not today.

3D laser scanning services – could it be the answer to your problems? If you need to install a platform, catwalk or stairway, it just might. Stairs are frequently the subject of 3D laser scanning jobs. Why? For one, they involve a certain amount of space, sometimes large space. And usually any kind of valuable space deserves some planning. Whether it be a kid’s treehouse of an industrial storage tank, it is usually best to plan before you build. Even with a treehouse, we all know what happens when you wing it. Something will be off, requiring you to “make it work” in the end by any means necessary, usually to the detriment of its visual appearance but hopefully not safety.  But with industrial projects, planning is even more important because the safety of the design cannot be left in the hands of the installer alone. A stairway or catwalk must be pre-planned and analyzed by engineers to ensure that they are designed to withstand any and all of the various stresses that it may be subjected to. 3d laser scanning services come into play when the stairway is being added to an existing structure. Engineers need to know what they have to work with. How big is the space, where are the possible conflicts and interferences? The 3d laser scanning data can be used as an as-built reference for what is currently there. While one could just take a few measurements with a laser tape or tape measure, there is really no way of knowing for sure whether those numbers are truly accurate, because the reality is that things are usually not perfectly shaped. Taking a single measurement with a tape measure here and there does not always give you an accurate picture of how the space may be out of square, not plumb, not level or varying in height and width. Because the existing structure was installed by human beings, and humans are guaranteed to make mistakes, even if very small. 3D laser scanning services help compensate and adapt to this world built by human mistakes. A half an inch may not be a big deal when building a deck or fence, but when building a stairway or platform that keeps workers safe multiple stories off the ground, a half an inch could mean big problems. Thanks to new 3d laser scanning technologies, you can obtain accuracy of less than 1mm in your measurements when you use 3d point clouds as an as-built reference. We can also convert the point cloud in to a convenient, easy-to-process CAD model. While there is no guarantee that the new stairway or platform will be built error-free, at least engineers can start with accurate information and build in design tolerances that anticipate the inevitable error that will be introduced during construction. 3D laser scanning services add a level of confidence with the design, so much so that the stairway or catwalk could even be fully constructed off-site and brought to the final destination as one piece that just bolts/welds right in. This type of prefabrication would not be feasible without highly accurate as-built information that is afforded by 3D laser scanning services.