Terrestrial laser scanning has become a popular way of digitising buildings and complex environments. Laser scanning was adopted as the means of capturing 3D data in many elds, including architecture, engineering and environmental survey. It was only a matter of time for the Heritage sector to start using the technology. This thesis describes the scienti c contributions from the collaboration project that explored the viability of automating the laser data acquisition process. The project concentrated on the reduction of the skill set required by the operator of the laser scanner as well as the improvement of the usability of large datasets. The contributions involved the development of a new data representation method, a new visibility estimation metric and an improved volumetric decimation algorithm.