Measuring The Spacing of Formwork System Members Using 3D Point Clouds

Abstract

Formwork systems significantly impact the safety risk, construction productivity, and capital investment of infrastructure projects. Ensuring that formwork systems are properly installed is fundamental to avoid those adverse impacts. To do that, quality inspection during installation is important. The traditional spacing inspection process of different members of the formwork system is time-consuming and labordemanding, and it is easily affected by the inspector’s knowledge and skills. This study proposes a methodology for the spacing measurement of formwork system members using 3D point clouds to overcome these shortcomings. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methodology were tested on a formwork system mockup. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the eight spacing measurements compared to those using a measuring tape was 1.05%. The experimental test demonstrates that the 3D point cloud approach is promising, and it has the potential to be an alternative solution to measure the spacing of formwork system members.