Water Treatment Plant Renovations Done Better By 3D Laser Scanning Services

Consider 3D Laser Scanning services

Have you ever been to a country where you couldn’t drink the water? Maybe you were warned that you would get sick if you drank it. Maybe you drank some and had to stay close to the restroom for a week. We can all thank those who build and maintain water treatment plants that guarantee that if you drink the water that you are not going to have bowel problems.  It is important to keep those plants running and staying up with the demand for good water. Maintenance on those plants sometimes calls for renovations. In such cases, it is good to consider the benefits of using 3D laser scanning services to do the job.

3D laser scanning good for tough jobs

In order to do a renovation job, you have to know what you are working with. Renovating a water treatment plant can mean replacing things like disinfection equipment. Upgrading plant HVAC, replacing pipes and dewatering equipment. They might also have to replace some pumps and meters and a whole lot other stuff. The key is going to be getting an accurate layout of the plant. Just going by the design diagrams is not going to work. Things aren’t always in reality put together like it says on paper. For this reason, it is going to be necessary to go in with 3D laser scanning services to find some actual as-built measurements. Those as built measurements will help plan the renovation project with much less chance of error than if you were assuming everything was the same as the blueprints.

The workings of 3D laser scanning services

Using 3D laser scanning services to do renovations requires a 3D laser scanner like a Leica ScanStation. The scanning technician goes in and runs a laser line across the area that needs to be captured and made into a CAD file for analysis. The 3D laser scanner collects millions of points from the surface of the object. This collection of points is called a post cloud. All of those points together are then registered. That means that through a software program all of those points can be connected together to form the object or area scanned. For example, when a water tank is scanned, once all of those points are collected, the points are registered, making one single virtual object. That object can then be converted into a CAD file. With that CAD file you can take measurements, adjust design, or whatever else that can be done virtually before you start doing any onsite work.

A lot of hassle can be eliminated simply by doing 3D scanning services on your water treatment plant before renovation. It will cut down on measuring time since you needn’t measure everything manually. It also adds to the safety of the project since there will be no need to bring in ladders and try to reach difficult spots. More than that, having a 3D model of the water treatment can be stored and used again later for other future projects. Maybe now you don’t think you will need it, but there may come a day when you will.

Keep reading: more articles about 3D scanning

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