In June 2007, Coast 2 Coast descended upon the Sahara with a twelve man survey crew. By measuring with a variety of laser tools, including four total stations, and drawing on-site in AutoCAD, Coast 2 Coast’s Field Service Specialists created 2D plans of the entire facility, including each of the guest-room towers, the casino, restaurants, and all back-of-house areas in less than two months. The final package consisted of floor plans, reflected ceiling plans, roof plans and selected elevations. This was no small feat, as Coast 2 Coast’s Field Project Manager had to deal with a management group that at times was difficult or altogether uncooperative. The focus on logistics was critical, as individual surveyor schedules and access to most areas of the facility had to be coordinated with the facility engineering staff on a daily basis.
Challenges
The Sahara ranks as the last remaining vintage "Rat Pack" casino-hotel, and today anchors the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip. On March 2, 2007, Sam Nazarian and Stockbridge Real Estate Group signed an agreement to purchase the Sahara from the Bennett family. Nazarian selected one of his companies, SBE Entertainment Group, to take over the management of the day-to-day operations of the facility when the deal closed. SBE immediately hired Marnell Corrao Associates, a Las Vegas Architecture firm, to begin planning for a major renovation once the deal closed. Marnell soon discovered that existing conditions documentation for the entire facility was either outdated or altogether missing. Faced with the daunting task of surveying 1.75 million square feet, Marnell turned to Coast 2 Coast for help.
In May 2007, SBE contracted Coast 2 Coast, on Marnell’s recommendation, to provide complete as-built documentation for the entire facility. The sheer size of the project was challenging enough, but it was further complicated by the fact the facility was open 24/7 and was currently operated by a lame-duck management group.
Solutions
As planning progressed, SBE considered adding an additional guest room tower with retail space in an area at the rear of the facility currently occupied by the hotel’s bridge to the monorail platform, a large mechanical room, and a parking lot. In dealing with an already crowded plot, precision and accuracy was a must, particularly with regard to the mechanical room. SBE again contracted Coast 2 Coast, this time to provide 3D laser scanning and modeling services. In August of 2007, Coast 2 Coast deployed a two-man scanning crew. The Field Service Specialists used a HDS 3000 to scan the exterior elevations of the structures in the targeted area and the interior of the mechanical plant. To overcome line-of sight and shadowing issues created by the high-density of equipment and piping in the mechanical room, the scanning crew had to set-up the scanning rig in 25 different locations.
Using Cyclone, Coast 2 Coast’s office-based post processing and modeling staff registered and unified the various scans to clean-up and reduce the number of points in the data cloud. Coast 2 Coast then used the resulting point cloud to create a 3D model. The _nal product was delivered in 3D Studio Max.