Column Data Extraction From Point Clouds

I had a question this week on how to extract Column Data from a Point Cloud so that the Design and Actual positions of the column could be compared.

The first video of the videos below shows how to find the Front Face, Back Face and two Side Faces of the Column using the Cutting Plane View. Because the actual columns are not perfectly vertical, the user also needed to determine where the columns were at specific elevations, so that the next stage of detail design could be carried out to the absolute locations of the columns at those elevations. The user was chasing an accuracy of 3mm for the column positions.

The second video shows an alternative approach by creating two pairs of lines on two of the faces of the column that run up the face of the column. Then using VPI at Elevation to compute the specific elevations required. and then using those nodes to create the faces of the column, computing the intersecton point between those faces and using that as an anchor point onto which the Design Shape of the column could be attached and rotated into position. This then gives us the corners of the Column in the Design and Actual models and allows us to compare the two sets of positions.