The accurate registration of 3D point clouds with project 3D/4D models is becoming more and more important with the development of BIM and 3D laser scanning, for which the registration in a common coordinate system is critical to project control. While robust solutions for scan-model fine registration already exist, they rely on a fairly accurate prior coarse registration. This paper first shows that, in the context of the AEC/FM industry, the scan-model coarse registration problem presents specific (1) constraints that make fully automated registration very complex and often illposed, and (2) advantages that can be leveraged to develop simpler yet effective registration approaches. A semiautomated system is thus proposed that takes those characteristics into account. The system automatically extracts planes from the point cloud and 4D model. The planes are then manually but intuitively matched by the user. Experiments, comparing the proposed system to registration software commonly used in the AEC/FM industry, demonstrate that at least as good registration quality can be achieved by the proposed system, but more simply and faster. It is concluded that, in the AEC/FM context, the proposed plane-based registration system is a compelling alternative to standard point-based registration techniques.
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