Bubbling Walls

When a wall, by design, is built vertically plumb that’s great. When it’s out of plumb or warped, that could pose a problem, sometimes a costly one. Midwestern Consulting uses 3D laser scanning to help our clients determine the exact geometric shape of walls.

Engineers and architects on a project at Oakland Community College in Farmington Hills, Michigan were investigating two 40 foot by 120 foot exterior walls to a building constructed in the late 1960’s. All parties knew the walls had issues. Cracks were appearing on the exterior brick facade, as well as the interior side of the outside walls.

Varying schools of thought existed as to what was causing the cracks, one thought was that the walls were actually de-laminating and the exterior brick façade was falling away from the interior brick façade. What was known and agreed upon was the existence of a few ‘bubbles’ on the walls, but the severity of them was not known. The structural engineer and architect decided to turn to us to see if our 3D laser scanning could lead them to truly see and understand the wall’s entire geometry.

The 3D laser scanning data proved that the walls were, in fact, bubbling in several areas (see Area “B” and “C” as examples on the image below). The color images within these drawings were created directly from our scan, and color maps were applied appropriately to reveal the deviations of the wall from the plumb line. Spot elevations were set on the wall to compliment the color’s meaning.

To our client’s surprise, our scan revealed a “cavity,” or inverted bubble along the top edge of the walls that was not known previously (see Area “A” on the image). Based upon all these findings, our client was able to move forward on the project with confidence. Overall, the walls are considered to be in fairly good condition; nonetheless, some additional bracing is necessary to prevent any further movements. In the end, our client found our data to be very ‘rational and informative’ and found this to be an excellent use of 3D laser scanning.

Survival Flight

A recent project at the University of Michigan "Survival Flight" helicopter Helipad shows how using the laser scanner saved our client
time and money.

Midwestern Consulting was hired by a contractor to provide surveying services at the site. Our task was to locate the existing paint markings for the helicopter landing location and a University of Michigan "M" logo.


The existing paint was to be removed from the pad and then reapplied. We choose to use a total station and our HDS6000 laser scanner to do the survey. We initially thought it would be faster to process the data from the traditional total station method - until our client changed his mind and asked for some additional data.

After delivering the final drawing to our client, a decision was made to move the position of the "M" and align it to the edge of the nearest retaining wall - and to do so without painting the "M" too close to some nearby underground electric access covers.


Had we not scanned the pad, a second site visit to gather additional data would have been necessary. But since the entire Helipad area was captured with our scanner during the first site visit, gathering the additional data from our scanner files was fast and easy.

Our final drawing accurately placed the new markings in the location the client wanted. We solved our client's problem quickly and without additional costs.

Exciting Times!

GSA Nationwide BIM Contract
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Public Building Service (PBS) has awarded HNTB a five year Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract worth up to $30 million for Nationwide BIM Services. This was one of two nationwide contracts with ViewforView out of San Francisco as the other awardee. Midwestern Consulting is a member of the HNTB team and will provide laser scanning services on these projects.

The contract calls for HNTB and its team of sub-consultants to provide BIM services to document existing conditions of GSA’s building assets and create 3-dimensional building models which will assist GSA in managing its buildings throughout all four phases of the facility life cycle.

Leica GeoSystems User Conference

Some years ago, Leica observed a simple truth: when Leica Geosystems HDS users from different areas got together and openly shared information with each other, their laser scanning and related activities would improve, often very significantly. This led to organizing an annual HDS Worldwide User Conference. Since the inception of this conference, a mountain of evidence & glowing user testimonials support the extremely positive business results for HDS users who take advantage of it.

Brandon Walker, from Midwestern Consulting, has been asked to present at this year's user conference on "Historic Preservation: Business Opportunities & Workflow". This is a tremendous opportunity to showcase our extensive historic preservation work experience.

POB - Fishtown Article

POB Magazine just published an article, HDS Fishtown Article, on one of our High Definition Survey projects, Historic Fishtown. This project is located in Leland, Michigan, in the northwest corner of the state, and will preserve the nature and characteristics of this charming fishing village.

Our task was to scan and provide 3D wireframe models of each building so the architects could better understand their physical relationship. During the renovation, the buildings will be moved to a nearby parking lot so foundations can be installed and exterior improvements to the buildings themselves.

Hope you enjoy the article!

Midwestern Consulting Selected by PlayhouseSquare to perform High Definition Scanning of Historic Allen Theater in Cleveland, Ohio

Ann Arbor, MI, June 29, 2009 – Midwestern Consulting, one of the region’s premiere provider of high definition scanning, has been selected by PlayhouseSquare to provide laser scanning and modeling services for Historic Allen Theater renovations, which was originally constructed in the early 1920’s.

The 40,000 square foot, three-story facility is currently operational and has various performances and events scheduled throughout the next few months. Midwestern Consulting will provide scanning services that document the existing conditions of the theater and balcony areas. The scope of work will provide the designers an array of deliverable types that best suit their needs including, 3D TruView images, scalable tif images, 2D elevation drawings and 3D surfaces of the walls to create an existing conditions BIM.

“Midwestern Consulting is proud to serve as the HDS provider for the renovation of this historic landmark and partner with PlayhouseSquare in making this theater a star attraction in Cleveland’s renowned theater district,” said Brandon Walker, Senior Project Manager of Midwestern Consulting.

Historic Fishtown

Along the Lake Michigan shore of Leland, Michigan lays historic Fishtown made up of numerous weathered fishing shanties, smokehouses, souvenir shops, restaurants, and more. Nearly half of the "town" rests on stilts and a boardwalk, along with its docks standing at the edge of the Leland River. Once the heart of a commercial fishing village, the structures and docks are real places where people can walk through, see, and feel a connection to the areas' great fishing heritage. The aura is incredibly unique and is something the local citizens are determined to preserve.

Working with Hopkins Burns Design Studio, JJR, and the Fishtown Preservation Society, Midwestern Consulting provided HDS service to document the locations of the entire Fishtown for future maintenance and preservation purposes.

Many of the buildings were originally planned with great haste. Rarely do buildings lie perpendicular, plumb, or parallel to one another. This presented the architects with a nearly impossible task of measuring and locating the buildings in their exact, existing conditions.

Midwestern Consulting provided our client with an accurate 3D wireframe of all the buildings from which the architects performed massing studies. Often performed by architects, massing studies explore present and future spatial relationships. For instance, Hopkins Burns found that one of shops was originally facing south, but now faced east. If the building is rotated back to its original position, a massing study will reveal the spatial impact.

As the project developed, the 3D wireframes were imported into Google Sketchup to generate 3D solid masses and the photo images were overlaid that will put Fishtown into Google Earth. In addition, a topographic survey of the entire area was also needed. This was easily created directly from our 50-million point 3D data point cloud. No total station needed.

Laser Scanning, BIM & Revit

3D Building Information Modeling systems (BIM) are quickly becoming the productive tool many of us in the construction industry thought they would be. In a building renovation project, BIM allows the design team, the construction team, and the building owner to add-to and reference all information acquired during the development of the BIM model - including existing conditions measurements.

How does point cloud data collected by the 3D laser scanner fit with BIM systems?

Once 3D scanning is completed and the data has been post-processed, the 3D data can be imported into Civil 3D CAD, Revit or NavisWorks. This data import process allows you to manage existing conditions data in these systems.

This can be much easier and more efficient than doing hand-measurements yourself. Here are a few of the reasons:

• The laser scanner captures all of the existing conditions measurements - not just those objects you spend time measuring.
• If you need to re-check a measurement all of that point data is available to you eliminating the need to go back out to the site.
• In your CAD program you can create precise 2D or 3D drawings at anytime you want.