Certainty 3D of Orlando Florida has recently added floor measurement tools to the TopoDOT tool suite in order to process point cloud data and extract measurements per ASTM International Standards E 115596 Standard Test Method for Determining FF Floor Flatness and FL Floor Levelness Numbers. These new TopoDOT tools provide construction operations with measurements of flatness and level familiar to them and accepted in todays design and construction processes.
At Certainty 3D we realize that the success of laser scanning applied to civil construction depends greatly on the ability to emulate existing technologies and follow existing standards when employing LiDAR systems. Floor flatness measurement is a good example. Floor flatness has long been measured by devices such as the FloorPro, D-Meter, Dipstick and F-Meter. These devices were designed to provide flatness and level measurements per established ASTM standards. These measurements and standards have been accepted for years. One cannot hope to easily displace them with point clouds colored by elevation, point cloud cross-sections, or any other non-standard way of expressing flatness regardless of how much more accurate or complete the point cloud measurements may be!
Certainty 3D worked with our customer Leading Edge Land Surveys, Orlando, FL to develop these tools in support of their work for a major Orlando theme park. In the following, well take through a brief overview of the process without going into too much detail. (We refer the reader to the copyrighted ASTM standards references above for detail).
Leading Edge scanned the colored areas using a Riegl VZ400 laser scanner. Below is the orange areas shown with the point cloud overlaid.
Two quick scans captured the entire floor area much more quickly than the more traditional equipment mentioned above. Moreover, the data covers the floor completely where a cross-section can easily be extracted in TopoDOT. That being said, in following the ASTM standards, flatness and level are defined along just several intersecting lines as shown below (green lines).
The ASTM standard E1155-96 describes rules for selection of these lines. The TopoDOT level measurement tool evaluates the floor flatness and level along each of these lines automatically.
TopoDOT also extracts a report providing the FL , floor level, and Ff, floor flatness numbers along each line summarizing the results automatically. Any F numbers exceeding limits are flagged. The raw data and a cross-section profile are also automatically extracted in a report format.
These new TopoDOT flatness tools now provide our users the capability to apply LiDAR technology to another traditional construction application in a way familiar to and accepted by the design, engineering and construction community. As always, Certainty 3D continues to support our customers in extracting value from their LiDAR data. For more information contact Certainty 3D at info@certainty3d.com or visit our website at www.certainty3d.com .