LiDAR scanners
LiDAR scanners are devices that spin, shooting a low-level laser. When this laser hits surfaces, it bounces back towards the LiDAR scanner and it saves the distance the laser travelled. When the scan is completed, the scanner puts all these points together into a point cloud. These point clouds can then be combined in a proprietary software (Faro uses SCENE, Leica uses Cyclone Register 360, Trimble uses Realworks) to generate a combined project point cloud. This point cloud will resemble the area that is scanned as if it was made from dots. Using this you can then use the point cloud in Revit to create a 3D model.
The forceable future of LiDAR scanning technology is to increase speed and efficiency. Make the scanners faster, more accurate and easier to use. We have already made advancements into mobile scanning, allowing for users to have the ability to simply push the scanner around as it scans the area. The next advancement for mobile LiDAR scanning is the addition of color, which in itself is a feature that many LiDAR scanning companies are seeking to increase the speed of, as taking colorized scans adds a lot of time to the projects scan time.