Aspects of using 3-D laser scanning technology in ship retrofit projects

The number of ship retrofit and conversion projects has increased dramatically over the last couple of years, mainly as a result of new international regulations to limit environment pollution. Another driver has been conversion of oil tankers into floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels as offshore oil and gas production has moved into deeper waters. The need to accurately establish the existing location of equipment and systems onboard ships prior to a retrofit project has lead to an increasing use of 3-D laser scanning. This technology brings benefits as it increases the accuracy of the retrofit design and associated production information and it shortens the time needed for the onboard survey. The paper describes the laser 3-D technology and compares the time allocated to the classical practice of collecting input data onboard of ships with 3-D laser scanning activity, based on review of records from several onboard scanning and subsequent retrofit projects.