Sustainability and Environmental Performance

From point cloud to material passport: automated creation of material passports of existing steel structures based on point clouds

Noichl Florian, Forth Kasimir, de Wolf Catherine, Borrmann André, Moreno-Rangel Alejandro, Kumar Bimal

Published 2025

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📄 Paper
This paper presents a step towards automated material passport creation and environmental assessment of existing buildings based on point cloud data. While the construction industry faces environmental challenges requiring circular economy principles, existing buildings lack comprehensive material information for sustainability analysis. Our method transforms point clouds of steel beam structures into semantically rich building information models through a streamlined workflow. Following geometric processing, we emphasize semantic enrichment by identifying standard steel cross-sections and linking components with environmental datasets. This connects geometric representations to material properties, connection types, and impact factors – essential data for circularity metrics. Evaluated on a steel roof structure, our approach generates enriched IFC4 models enabling automated calculation of material circularity indicator, disassembly potential, and life cycle assessment in the Madaster platform. This methodology demonstrates the potential for scalable environmental assessment of steel structural elements, advancing toward comprehensive building assessment without manual inventory processes.

Abstract

This paper presents a step towards automated material passport creation and environmental assessment of existing buildings based on point cloud data. While the construction industry faces environmental challenges requiring circular economy principles, existing buildings lack comprehensive material information for sustainability analysis. Our method transforms point clouds of steel beam structures into semantically rich building information models through a streamlined workflow. Following geometric processing, we emphasize semantic enrichment by identifying standard steel cross-sections and linking components with environmental datasets. This connects geometric representations to material properties, connection types, and impact factors – essential data for circularity metrics. Evaluated on a steel roof structure, our approach generates enriched IFC4 models enabling automated calculation of material circularity indicator, disassembly potential, and life cycle assessment in the Madaster platform. This methodology demonstrates the potential for scalable environmental assessment of steel structural elements, advancing toward comprehensive building assessment without manual inventory processes.

Topics

DatasetSustainable Buildingsembodied carbonlifecycle assessmentmaterial passportsmaterial simulationsustainable constructionsustainable materials

Cite this paper

@inbook{5f3109bf, title={From point cloud to material passport: automated creation of material passports of existing steel structures based on point clouds}, rights={Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported}, url={https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/93257}, DOI={10.17868/STRATH.00093257}, abstractNote={This paper presents a step towards automated material passport creation and environmental assessment of existing buildings based on point cloud data. While the construction industry faces environmental challenges requiring circular economy principles, existing buildings lack comprehensive material information for sustainability analysis. Our method transforms point clouds of steel beam structures into semantically rich building information models through a streamlined workflow. Following geometric processing, we emphasize semantic enrichment by identifying standard steel cross-sections and linking components with environmental datasets. This connects geometric representations to material properties, connection types, and impact factors – essential data for circularity metrics. Evaluated on a steel roof structure, our approach generates enriched IFC4 models enabling automated calculation of material circularity indicator, disassembly potential, and life cycle assessment in the Madaster platform. This methodology demonstrates the potential for scalable environmental assessment of steel structural elements, advancing toward comprehensive building assessment without manual inventory processes.}, publisher={University of Strathclyde Publishing}, author={Noichl, Florian and Forth, Kasimir and de Wolf, Catherine and Borrmann, André}, year={2025} }