The first challenge on every brownfield project is to identify the current status of the plant. Drawings and engineering data for the plant are often out of date or unavailable, and many of the older plants have no 3D CAD data available. Various survey techniques have been used over the years, but they tended to be man-hour intensive, produced unreliable data, and were slow in making information available to the design team. Laser scanners delivering point cloud data (PCD) avoid these problems, and, with the ability to reference PCD in the 3D CAD world, make producing a clash-free design in brownfield projects much easier. After testing the Laser Model Interface (LMI) prototype from AVEVA in July 2005, AMEC has now used the LMI on projects offshore around the regions, bringing a new dimension to PDMS brownfield projects in the oil and gas industry. The use of PCD within the PDMS environment has given AMEC the opportunity to reduce project costs, shorten schedules, and improve safety.

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