Automation of Construction Progress Monitoring by Integrating 3D Point Cloud Data with an IFC-Based BIM Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, it is a profound, well-organized, and well-written study. I would like to highlight minor discrepancies for the improvement of the manuscript.

1)      I would suggest renaming section 3 as “Methodology” instead of “Methods”.

2)      The author mentioned in line 224

“The point cloud obtained during this scan was georeferenced using control points……”

This needs small clarification, what type of control points were used, and what quantity? Did the used quantity justify accurate georeferencing?

3)      In figure 17, the author demonstrated the global IDs of objects defined in IFC, which may be understandable by the author himself, but not for all readers. I would suggest adding one more column explaining the object type.

4)      Overall, it is a well-composed study, and the results have been explained effectively. However, I still feel a good critical discussion section needs to be added (maybe by the end of Section 4 or a new section). The author should explain how this study (methodology) is more beneficial than previously performed studies and how this methodology is practicable.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper proposes a construction progress monitoring method. The paper is interesting and the theme is novelty. But the paper fails in structure, organization and writing. The content is correct. This reviewer proposes the following modifications for publication. 

- Sentences are too long. On many occasions they are difficult to understand and follow. It looks like a translation from another language. Please review all the writing, shortening sentences, and making the text more similar to a scientific article. For example: 

"The presented construction based on the alignment of point cloud data obtained from laser sensors with the IFC-based BIM model by extracting the vertices of IFC objects and thus creating a second version of the point cloud, nd automatic object detection by calculating the relationship between points and objects  in the aligned data" 

- The structure of the article is complicated, with many sections and subsections. Insert at the end of section 1 a paragraph with the structure of the article.

- Review the verb tenses of the article. I recommend the authors to consult the correct way of writing in METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION, where the tenses are defined by the scientific community.

- Check table and figure numbering. they are messy

- Section 3.3 is confusing. Restructure.

- The equations must be numbered. Review the recommendations of the review for authors.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has improved. Good luck to the authors for future interesting works.