A system and method provide for rapid generation of 3D models of complex environments by using a coordinate measurement machine to scan an environment having one or more objects to generate a point cloud comprising a plurality of points, analyzing the points without creating surfaces using the points to determine boundaries of the environment and boundaries of the object within the environment, excising a region of points within the point cloud representing the object, where the excised region of points is determined using the boundaries of the environment and the boundaries of the object, and creating a modified point cloud by replacing the excised region of points with a digital object from a digital object library.