A survey of applications with combined BIM and 3D laser scanning in the life cycle of buildings

The integration of building information model (BIM) with point cloud from 3-D laser scanner provides powerful assistance in a variety of applications in the life cycle of building. However, the adoption of BIM and 3-D laser scanning for applications in the whole life cycle of buildings has yet to be satisfactorily reviewed. There is a need to understand the current situation of applications with BIM and 3-D laser scanning and their combined methods. The authors summarized combined methods of BIM and 3-D laser scanning at first. Then. the work presented in this article provides summarization of applications in the life cycle of building. In addition, the impact of emerging technologies on applications also be discussed. In this review, articles were limited to those published over the last decade. Two patterns in the approach to integrate BIM and 3-D laser scanning are reviewed. Several domains of application namely construction progress tracking, building components quality control, construction site safety, structural health monitoring, rescue after the disaster, energy modeling and management and modeling for exist building are looked back. According to occurred time of these applications, this article divides them into two classes: applications in construction period and applications in maintenance period. Based on the observed limitations in the reviewed papers, the authors conclude some potential future research trend for these applications based emerging technology at the same time.