Interior Site Visit Scanning

I routinely do site visits at concert performance venues, churches, performing arts spaces, etc. where I am tasked with taking measurements and drawing a Sketchup model to then import into an acoustic modeling program for loudspeaker placement and prediction. The rooms do not need to be overly detailed and I am only modeling the inside of a space such as a church.
Many times I do not have floorplans to draw from so right now I am taking measurements using a laser measure, making notes and taking pictures.

I am interested in other ways of going about this to improve my workflow. I’ve been seeing videos of people using point cloud scans but mostly for outdoor use and not for a medium/large interior space. I know there are solutoins like Canvas.io but that seems to be only for small room applications. I’ve also been looking at Matterport but I would have to pay $49 per site to export the point cloud data, plus a very expensive Leica or other camera that can take these masurements, and a $699/annually for a Sketchup Studio subscription.

I don’t necessarily need point cloud data but I’m looking for a way to potentially use photogrammetry in an interior space to take basic measurements, then model a room based on those measurements. It does not have to be 100% accurate, but something scanning related seems like it would speed up the process tremendously… Has anyone done anything like this for a medium/large interior space?

For example, I recently visited a church that was about 150’ deep x 55’ wide x 46’ high. There were columns in several areas that needed to be modeled. If there were a way to take multiple 360 degree camera measurements and slice them together, I would be able to have all the data I would need I would think instead of manually measuring everything.

Hello Bobcat,

If you have an iPad Pro or an iPhone Pro, they have LIDAR scanners built in that can scan a room/object and generate point clouds in the .ply format. You can then bring that into Sketchup using the Trimble Scan Essentials extension - Trimble Field Technology.

150’x55’x46’ may be beyond the capabilities of the iPhone/iPad though, but I havent tested them in that situation yet.

Hope this helps.

Hari

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Thanks, is it possible to take multiple scans and stitch them together? I could see using an iPad Pro or iPhone Pro in this case to accomplish this for spaces of this size.
Any recommendations on apps on the iPad or iPhone to do so?

Also, is this an extension or do I have to upgrade to Sketchup Studio? When I click the link to buy, it brings me to Sketchup Studio which is $699 a year. Just wanted to make sure I understand that’s what is needed to do this.

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You can import multiple scans, but you can’t stitch them together inside Sketchup. And you’re right about upgrading to Sketchup Studio - it’s the only way to get Scan Essentials.

There’s another plugin that reads point clouds in Sketchup, but I don’t know much about it - https://undet.com/undet-products/sketchup-plugin-for-3d-modeling-from-point-cloud/

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