Design Build Company Unispace Saved Exponentially with PrecisionPoint Inc.’s 3D Reality Capture Scanning Solutions

Faced with outdated building plans, Unispace chose PrecisionPoint for its superior service and combined laser scanning and reality capture experience. In a single day they 3D scanned 150,000 square feet, allowing Unispace to quickly rectify their BIM in Revit and verify the existing building conditions.

THE CLIENT

Unispace is a global design build company that combines strategy, design, and delivery for interior construction projects. With clients ranging from technology to cosmetic companies, Unispace creates environments that engage, empower, and inspire the people who inhabit them.

THE CHALLENGE

Unispace was tasked with designing a new employee office space for a global medical equipment company, in Plymouth, Minnesota. The prior occupants, a mattress company, were in the space for a decade, rendering the original 2D construction as-built plans outdated and unreliable.

With any project they take on, Unispace needs to know the space they’re working in its current condition, and a lot can change in a building over a decade. Outdated building as-built plans can be riddled with inaccuracies. This subjects an architect and client to increased construction budgets and project lead times, due to needed scope changes or rework discovered at the time of construction. The Unispace team needed to rectify the design BIM model they created and verify the plans for the Minnesota building in order to stick to budget and deliver their customer the best space possible on time and under budget.

THE SOLUTION AND RESULTS

Enter PrecisionPoint. Unispace contacted PrecisionPoint for an existing-conditions 3D scan to get the design BIM model verified and updated before they started developing construction documents. PrecisionPoint is a 3D reality capture solutions company with a decade of experience. They provide 3D scanning and scan-to-BIM services as well as web-based viewing software to ensure efficient and accurate building existing conditions digital models.

The Regional Principal of Design & Digital Integration, Vincent Poon, found PrecisionPoint by researching experienced reality capture 3D scanning solution companies that are certified NavVis Mapping partners that have the capacity to handle national work.

“The technology and equipment PrecisionPoint uses is very practical in that and more advanced than other solutions because it combines laser scanning and photogrammetry in one device. Because of that, the operator can scan much more area in much shorter time. That equates to a quicker turnaround time for us, which ultimately benefits the design team as well as the client.” —Vincent Poon, Regional Principal of Design & Digital Integration."

PrecisionPoint used their RapidScan service, which is a high-end mobile mapping service to execute a 3D scan and take 1,936 360-degree images covering an area of 150,000 square-feet of the medical equipment company’s four-story building.

150,000 sq. ft. • 3 stories • 140+ rooms

A 3D scan like this could easily take several people and a few day’s time to execute using standard tripod-based laser scanners. With PrecisionPoint’s RapidScan solution, it took one person and 10 hours to complete.

“I think it took longer for us to actually rectify the BIM model than it did for PrecisionPoint to execute the scan and supply the output… The fact that they could travel here and do the scan for the fee they charged… It was very reasonable, and the work delivered was worth the investment.” —Rob Shahee, Design Principal of Unispace Minneapolis."

The data provided helped Unispace easily transfer their 3D scan and point cloud data into Autodesk Revit, their choice of modeling software. And because Unispace does design and construction, the web-based IndoorViewer software provided by PrecisionPoint empowered architects, project managers, and contractors to coordinate seamlessly on the Minnesota building project as they shifted from concept to construction.

IndoorViewer combines point clouds with highly detailed, immersive 360° images that lets every building stakeholder explore and interact with scanned spaces exactly how they would do it in real life.

With the combined efficiency of mobile scanning and power of the 360-degree imagery provided, it was a no-brainer to hire PrecisionPoint for future Unispace Projects. Since the Minnesota project, PrecisionPoint has scanned Unispace project locations in Seattle, Washington and San Diego, California.