Portfolio: Historical Renovation

The City of Georgetown, Kentucky is undergoing a renovation of their historic City Hall building to upgrade their facilities, meet accessibility requirements and provide modern amenities for their employees. Working with a building that was over 100 years old and had unreliable documentation drawings, the design team determined that 3D laser scanning was the best option to accurately document the existing structure. After consulting with several firms, the team decided TrueScan was the most qualified to perform the scanning work.

The building had been renovated and added onto many times over the years and numerous floor elevations and nuances within the building had to be accounted for. A few of the challenges the team faced in documenting the structure included; floor elevations not matching up, walls being significantly out of plumb and areas being too difficult to access. This made it necessary to set a control system to tie all areas and floors of the building together. The City also had concerns about scanning operations interfering with employee workflow during normal business hours.  To address the City’s concerns, the TrueScan team set the project control and scanned the exterior and attic spaces of the building during a Thursday and Friday. The interior spaces occupied by employees were scanned over the weekend. TrueScan performed this work in under four days with one scanning technician working onsite. The exterior of the building was scanned in color while interior spaces were documented with intensity scans. The scans were processed, registered and given to the design team for their use in creating a Revit model.

Ultimately, TrueScan utilized both its experience documenting historic structures and its knowledge of surveying and complex geometries to help ensure the project was a success. Due to the unreliable documentation and age of the building, scanning was necessary for this renovation project. The TrueScan team was able to bring an understanding of the existing historic facility to the design team that would not have been achievable by typical field documentation practices.