The Combined Use of Terrestrial Laser Scanner and Handheld 3D Scanner for 3D Modeling of Piping Instrumentation at Oil and Gas Company

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) models are indispensable in managing and operating piping instrumentation activities in oil and gas companies. A 3D model provides more interactive and representative information about the actual object. Technologies that can be used to generate 3D piping instrumentation maps are the terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) and the handheld 3D scanner (HS). This study aimed to create a 3D model of piping instrumentation based on a combination of the TLS and HS methods. The results showed that an accurate 3D piping instrumentation model could be generated by combining these two methods. Merging the two data sets was carried out through a cloud-to-cloud registration process based on the object’s geometry by considering the selection of reference data, the similarity of the scale factor, the unit of measure, and the overlap of the two data. The registration error generated in combining these two methods was less than 3 mm. The geometric validation of the model’s dimensions using reference data and in-situ measurements had a largest absolute difference of 3.4 mm and an average absolute deviation of 1.6 mm.