Mobile Mapping Approach to Apply Innovative Approaches for Real Estate Assets Management: A Case Study

Technological development has strongly impacted all processes related to the design, construction, and management of real estate assets. In fact, the introduction of design procedures using a BIM approach has required the application of three-dimensional survey technologies, and in particular the use of LiDAR instruments, both in its static (TLS – Terrestrial Laser Scanner) and dynamic (iMMS – indoor Mobile Mapping System) implementations. Operators and developers of LiDAR technologies, for the implementation of scan-to-BIM procedures, initially placed special care and attention on the 3D sensing accuracies obtainable from such tools. The incorporation of RGB colorimetric data into these instruments has progressively expanded LiDAR-based applications from essential topographic surveying to geospatial applications, where the emphasis is no longer on accurate three-dimensional reconstruction of buildings, but on the capability to create three-dimensional images based visualizations, as Virtual Tours, which allow to recognize the assets located in every area of the buildings. Although much has been written about obtaining the best possible accuracies for extensive asset surveying of large-scale building complexes using iMMS systems, it is now essential to develop and define suitable procedures controlling such kinds of surveying, targeted at specifically geospatial applications. We especially address the design, field acquisition, quality control, and mass data management techniques that might be used in such complex environments. This work attempts to contribute in this sense by defining the technical specifications for the implementation of geospatial mapping of vast asset survey activities involving significant building sites utilizing iMMS instrumentation. Three-dimensional models can also facilitate virtual tours, enable local measurements inside rooms, and particularly support the subsequent integration of self-locating pictures based technologies, that can efficiently perform field updates of surveyed databases.