Point-Cloud Models of Historical Barns – Spatial Discrepancies of Laser Scanning versus Robotic Total Station

This study considers the generation of virtual, 3D point-cloud models of seven deteriorating historical, agricultural barns in Bulloch County, Georgia, USA, for preservation purposes. The work was completed as a service-learning project in a course on Terrestrial Light Detection and Ranging (T-LiDAR), offered at Georgia Southern University. The resulting models and fly-through videos were donated to Bulloch County Historical Society and to the Georgia Southern Museum, to make them available to the general public and future generations. Additionally, one of the seven barns was selected to be extensively measured to estimate the relative spatial accuracy of all seven resulting 3D point-cloud models, with respect to measurements completed with a highly accurate instrument. Three accurate benchmarks were established around it for georeferencing purposes. The positions of 44 points were measured in the field via an accurate, one- second, robotic total-station (RTS) instrument. Also, the coordinates of the same points were acquired from within georeferenced and non-georeferenced point-cloud models. These points defined 259 distances. They were compared to determine their discrepancy statistics. It was observed that this process produced virtual models with an approximate maximum spatial discrepancy of one-half inch (0.5 in) with respect to measurements performed by a highly accurate RTS device. There were no substantial differences in the relative accuracies of the georeferenced and non-georeferenced models.