FBR General Discussion, page-6431

The patent also mentions scanning of the slab and "mortar" to enable trimming of blocks to compensate for slab & mortar thickness variations.


[0027] The trim data fields allow for the bedding surface that the brick will be placed on, to be scanned by surveying equipment, which may be operated independently or associated with an automated brick laying machine. The brick placement database may then include a directive variable that signals to the automated brick laying machine that the bedding area for the brick needs to be scanned and the brick may need to be trimmed to suit the bedding surface. The surveying equipment associated with the automated brick laying machine may then scan the bedding surface and determine the amount of material to be removed from the brick so that when the brick is laid, the top surface of the brick is at the correct Z height and is level. This may be, and is usually done for the first course of bricks whose bedding surface is the slab or footing which may be subject to manufacturing variation from the concrete pouring and finishing process. If it is known that the tolerance of the brick height (Z dimension) is large than it may be necessary to scan the bedding surface after a certain number of courses have been laid.

[0028] As an alternative to scanning the slab by the machine during or immediately prior to the brick laying process, optionally the bedding surface or slab data could be obtained from a previously acquired scan of the slab and imported to the design software. This is of particular use where a wall is to be built on a known prior surface which may have existing survey or scan data, such as an existing slab or footing or on civil works such as a wall on a bridge or a freeway road, such as a freeway sound wall. A trim surface, or trim value for each of the first course of bricks is then associated with each first course brick in a tabular file. The trim surface may optionally be defined as a trim value or a grid array of trim values or by a known CAD data exchange format such as STL or IGES, point cloud or as a toolpath file, for example a G code file which can be run by the automated brick laying machine (the router or the saw in the machine) to trim the brick.

[0029] As a consequence, an entire construction can be defined by brick type and attributes as a data set. The data set may be provided as an accessable database, or in in tabular form with setting out the brick data in the order that the bricks are laid. The data set may include by reference additional files such as trim surface files or G code files for machining operations.