Contractors taking on the reconstruction of Iraq will step into a world of unknowns as they start rebuilding the land's dilapidated, damaged and poorly documented infrastructure. Some firms angling for the work are counting on laser scanners to help them get answers right off the bat.

Laser scanning can quickly and accurately capture the geometry of existing structures. Some vendors say that could give the technology a great advantage over traditional tools for capturing as-built data on the troubled nation's infrastructure. "We can minimize risk to personnel in Iraq by using small teams that go in and out quickly, pack the results in external devices, then return it to the U.S. for the engineering work," says Mark Klusza, co-founder and president of BitWyse Solutions Inc., Salem, Mass.

BitWyse is a plant engineering software firm and developer of LASERGen, one of several competing products that automate conversion of raw scan data into CAD-ready computer files. The software cuts days or weeks off the process of transforming huge files of raw scan data, called point clouds, into usable CAD files by eliminating the need to manually trace or remodel laser scan data.

Another vendor of scanning and conversion services, Amadeus Burger, president of CSA Inc., Atlanta, agrees that laser scanning and Iraq reconstruction seem made for each other. "I would assume it will be used. It's just a question how and by whom. The documentation available for those facilities is probably not very high. Scanning could be a major benefit in there," he says.

Identifying opportunity, BitWyse is seeking to build a nationwide laser scan vendor network that could tap into Iraqi rebuilding and modernization contracts. The firm now is hosting training sessions with pos-sible partners at a local powerplant.

The first of five BitWyse training sessions, held in early June, included prospective joint venture partners Z+F USA Inc., a Duquesne, Pa., manufacturer of laser scanning machines; 3DS2 Inc., an Elkhorn, Neb., scanning service provider; and 4D Technology Group Inc., a San Jose, Calif., information management systems firm. While the firms have yet to do a project together, "We're aligning ourselves with the opportunity," says Michael R. Frecks, 3DS2 president.

So far, the Iraq potential is hard to quantify, notes Eric J. Hoffman, CEO of scan vendor Quantapoint Inc., Pittsburgh. "It's difficult to get good visibility on what's going on. The only buyer is the U.S. government. What we do would be very useful, but it has to be balanced by priorities." He adds that the technology may be more suited for modernization than for rehabilitation.

Klusza says BitWyse's technology has been adopted by several major firms including Washington Group International, Boise; Houston-based Halliburton Co.; and Jacobs Engineering, Pasadena, Calif., which had a hand in LASERGen's development. All have been qualified for Iraq work and Halliburton's KBR International unit is currently the Army Corps of Engineers' interim prime contractor for Iraq's oil industry reconstruction (ENR 7/7 p. 12). "We've got five task orders they have been working against totaling about $250 million," says Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Eugene A. Pawlik.

Another BitWyse competitor, San Ramon, Calif.-based Cyra Technologies Inc., also sees opportunity in Iraq. Cyra has a broad client base, its own scanners and CloudWorx, also an automated data conversion program. "We think it {Iraq] has the potential to be a significant opportunity for our business," says Geoff Jacobs, Cyra senior vice president. "End users are looking for a system that can create as-builts, create a design around the as-built, then verify design or construction work."

Jacobs says both Cyra's and BitWyse's systems work with point clouds with in the CAD application. The differences are changing daily, but primarily BitWyse uses a Microstation platform where as CloudWorx has two versions, one for Microstation and another for AutoCAD, he says.

DATA DELIGHT Scans yield millions of measured points that can be quickly converted to CAD plans. (Image left courtesy of Cyra Technologies, image right courtesy of Bitwyse.)

BitWyse executives say differences in the products boil down to size and speed. "They look similar but are vastly different in the amount of data displayed," says Kevin C. Abbott, BitWyse co-founder and chief technology officer. "CloudWorx works with megabyte data sets whereas LASERGen can handle multigigabyte sets."

Costs for scanning and modeling depend on the project and equipment used, but typically run about $250 for one 360° view with a 60-ft radius from center, says Klusza. Frecks says one of his recent scans of a 450,000-sq-ft auto plant took 10 days and cost between $120,000 to $150,000. Work included 570 separate scans that generated 120 gigabytes of data on external hard drives. Accuracy is to within 3 mm, which reduces contractor rework and helps justify the expense, Klusza says.

While Iraq reconstruction may generate millions of dollars for their industry, scanners are hoping for much bigger bucks if U.S. plant owners and others switch data collection from manual measurement or high-tech tools of photogrametry and videogrametry to high-speed laser scanning. "There is a big push for change because the scanner becomes the camera and produces 3-D deliv-erables [in which] every cloud point is a measurement," says Brian Ahern, BitWyse business manager.

"The competition isn't other service providers but the traditional way of do-ing business," says Frecks, pointing out a reality also acknowledged by Klusza. "We compete against the tape measure," Klusza says. That's why he hopes a few groundbreaking projects in Iraq will give the technology a challenging opportunity to prove itself to the big players. Success in such a tough environment would be a quantum leap for the industry.