The Call: Our team leader, James, initially hesitated to take the call from Emily, as he was tired of cold sale calls. But Emily offered them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to survey a big castle in just 2.5 weeks for a new project without disclosing its location. James accepted the challenge, and a few days later, they signed an NDA and were given the castle’s location.

The Scope: Our team was tasked to create an accurate measured building survey in 3D, suitable for Sketchup. The requirement was to create an accurate 3D model with simple detail, up to the first 10 feet from ground level. Rapid data capture and delivery were essential due to the tight timescale.

The Plan of Action: The expansive Ramparts buried in the hillside of Gwrych Castle made it challenging to survey quickly. Traditional survey methods were not feasible, so our team used laser scanning to create a point cloud. The trickiest part was tackling the lack of stairs and access to higher levels. Our team deployed drones and some well-practiced photogrammetry techniques to capture clean detail at a high level. In just two days, they captured the whole castle intricately.

Point Cloud to Revit to SketchUp: Working with point clouds in Sketchup was difficult due to the file size. Our team simplified the point cloud by interpreting the major walls and low-level windows in Autodesk Revit, allowing them to create simple geometry in a software that can handle the point cloud well.