Washington DC Outdoor Mall LiDAR Scan to BIM

Project Description

Scan Skunks was hired by Jamestown LP to travel to Washington DC and scan a significant portion of Georgetown Park. This trip took place in January and we were up for the cool climates! Scan Skunks spent 7 days on site. The scope of the project was capturing façade, vertical systems, and general scanning for the multi-level shopping plaza. Because of the complexity and various renovations over the years, access and stairwells were tantamount to a labyrinth.

Over the course of our week on site, we scanned several stores like TJ Maxx, Anthropologie, and H&M, Pinstripes Bowling Alley, Empty retail, an on site storage facility, various hallways, exterior facades, a 2 storey restaurant, several parking levels, and more.

On-Site Challenges in Washington DC LiDAR Scanning

The south Exterior facade was quite tricky simply because there was very little access to view the building itself. The canal runs about 25’ beneath, and at less than 2 miles from the White House, droning part of the site was out of the question. We relied heavily on our Geoslam scanner and our long range terrestrial Faro scanner. The 550’+ long façade was captured from 3 main access areas.

On the North façade we scanned during darkness because traffic on M Street during the day prevented us from being able to view the North side of the building adequately. So we warmed up our cocoa and strapped on our mittens to take some exteriors.

Lastly, working through some of the stores was also challenging. Because of the nature of some of the stores, certain doors must always be locked and monitored. Working with store managers and around staff, we were able to scan these large spaces.

In all, we had a blast covering this project. We scanned over 2500 Matterport scans, and 35+ point clouds. We would estimate that we scanned a little over 300,000sqft on this project.